


down the rabbit hole

by Haruhi02



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: ? - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Alice in Wonderland Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fake College AU, Gen, HQ Brofest Master Tier, Lots of formal wear, Lots of hair pulling, Magic, Original Character(s), Power of Friendship, Rainbows?, Talking Cats, Tennis, ships, teatime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-26 10:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10784748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haruhi02/pseuds/Haruhi02
Summary: Yachi Hitoka and Kozume Kenma are not friends. They are barely acquaintances, let alone two people who are supposed to be the double protagonists of some anime light novel. They must find a way to work together and get back home, and, through jail time, teatime, cat buses, rainbow beaches, Clockwork Koushi's protests, and the darkness of the abyss, they are damn well going to make it work.Probably.





	1. I said I was desperate! Not that I wanted to get sucked into an alternative dimension!

 

Yachi Hitoka is desperate. 

 

She's never gotten grades these bad in any class before. Every time she wakes up and remembers she has to go to her Creative Writing lecture, the sudden surge of anxiety spoon fed to her nerves is unbearable. She'd honestly rather write a two-hundred-page long scientific report about every single job of the pancreas, or even write a book report about hagiology in literature, than even  _try_   to write a single paragraph of any of the exercises her flamboyant professor orders them to do. 

 

And really, Hitoka can't afford for her grades to drop. Not only will it drag down her average, but it will also drag  _her_  down as well. Her grades are one of the few things which give her confidence. Seeing full marks or good grades on her record remind her she's capable, and that she  _can_. She understands that they're really only numbers which might not even amount to much later in life, but they're important to her, especially her, who is always caught in an endless oscillation between thinking she isn't good enough, and thinking she's doing something wrong. 

 

So she musters up some courage, and rather blatantly accosts Kozume Kenma after class is over. 

 

"K...Kozume-kun!" she calls just before he can walk out the door. Kozume pauses, just out of the way of the other students, who barrel out of the lecture room in a bottleneck maneuver. Hitoka stuffs her notebooks in her backpack as Kozume scans the room once with a flick of his eyes. 

 

Hitoka isn't entirely sure what it is Kozume is doing with his writing that she isn't, but the professor absolutely adores his pieces, so maybe Hitoka can ask him for a tip or two. Like what to focus on more, or where to improve, or how she can possibly reach his demiurgic level of writing in her short lifetime.

 

She places the last notebook inside just as he walks out the door.  

 

_Oh no! I don’t think he heard me!_

 

"Kozume-kun! Wait!" 

 

Hitoka barrels out the door and nearly dashes down the long winding corridor of the humanitarian building. However, Kozume is right there, near the wall, and she lets out a sigh of relief.

 

Her arms almost make a windmill motion as she comes to an abrupt stop, before she spins to face Kozume properly. 

 

And this is where her nerves decide to have a field day worthy of a person with helminthophobia being thrown into a barrel of worms. 

 

"Uh, um, I..." She twiddles her thumbs, and doesn't dare to even peek at Kozume's face. He probably thinks she's weird, or even worse, _annoying_. The only goal that steels her forward to steamroll her way through all this awkwardness is the even worse implication of her failing the class, and really, she'll take weird, annoying blonde over any failure. 

 

"I was wondering if—! You could, um," Here she meets his eyes. It stings a little when he immediately looks to the floor, but Hitoka will power through anything to prove she isn't a failure. 

 

"I was wondering if you could give me some, uh, pointers..? On writing! For our writing class! Just maybe a few! I really hope it isn't a bother and I'm really sorry if it is but—" 

 

"No." 

 

Hitoka pauses, her fingers clasped in front of her where she had been pressing them together. Had he just..? Said _no_? 

 

Kozume looks to the floor, and shifts the strap of his messenger bag higher on his shoulder. 

 

"I... have to go. I have a lecture in Science." 

 

And then he just  _leaves_. 

 

Hitoka is left there more than a little baffled. Surely he couldn't have really just said _no_. He had probably just meant he couldn't do it now since he had class. Yes…That has to be it! She'll just ask him next time, and then maybe she'll finally be back on her way of getting good grades. 

 

-***-

 

Kozume is avoiding her. 

 

This revelation had not occurred to her until the fourth time she'd tried to talk to him after the many classes they shared. She had been walking up to him, and had momentarily looked away from his pudding hair to make sure her backpack was zipped all the way, and when she had looked back, he had dissipated from sight like a ghost.  

 

Her shoulders droop, and she sighs, hanging her head. Another failure to add to her never ending list of shortcomings in life. 

 

"H-hey. Yachi-san, right?" 

 

Hitoka peers up, and tries not to take a blatant step back or yelp. 

 

There's a boy with a face like a yankee and a blonde mohawk like woah and he's _talking_   to  _her_. 

 

Hitoka hopes the quivering of her knees goes unnoticed. 

 

"Y-yes?!" she answers, perhaps a dab too much on the shrill side. She really hopes she hasn't secretly offended a yakuza gang unknowingly. Dodging the Japanese mafia will surely drive her nerves right to the Spiral Of Doom And Gloom.

 

Hitoka will tell anyone how awful it is to be caught in such a thing from her own personal, previous visits.

 

"So I, uh, heard you wanted to ask Kenma about something, right—" Oh god, was it a universally acknowledged truth how desperate she's become? She has to perish the thought before she shudders. "—and you know, Kenma's kind of being a lazy jerk about the whole thing, with how he's avoiding you and all—" 

 

He was  _avoiding_  her? 

 

Had she really made that bad of a first impression? Hitoka can't even place what it could have been that had come off so wrong. Had she insulted him accidentally? Had her stopping him momentarily made him late for class? Was that why this yakuza prince was talking to her? To tell her the time and place of her demise for causing unnecessary convenience to a friend of the yakuza gang? 

 

"—you got that, Yachi-san?"

 

Hitoka is torn from her preparation to the Spiral Of Doom And Gloom when the yakuza boy with a blonde mohawk appears to have asked her a question.

 

She has no idea what he had been talking about. 

 

"Huh?"  

 

"Kenma is always doing his lab reports in the library from eleven to twelve on Mondays. I'm sure you can catch him then."  

 

Wait, the yakuza prince was _helping_ her? He wasn't going to beat her up? That certainly creates a wave of relief for her heartstrings. However, she isn't so sure about asking Kozume anymore if he's _avoiding_ her. 

 

"I... It's ok," she finds herself saying before she can really think about it. The yakuza prince gives her a confused look. "I... I wouldn't want to inconvenience Kozume-kun more than I have—" 

 

"No—! That's not—! You're not—!" The yakuza takes a deep breath. "You're not bothering him in the least, Yachi-san. He just doesn't want to do it,  _and_  he's being an asshole about by avoiding you. If you really want his help, you're gonna have to put him on the spot, if ya know what I mean." 

 

Hitoka isn't exactly sure what to make of this development. On one hand, she's apparently made Kozume uncomfortable enough for him to just outright run away from her every chance he gets. Hitoka dreads being a bother more than she dreads failure at times, and Kozume's reaction to her asking for help is nearly single-handedly paying for an express ticket to The Spiral Of Doom And Gloom all over again. However, on the other hand, she's _still_ failing Creative Writing, and Kozume's yakuza prince friend is telling her Kozume is just being mean. 

 

Weighing the two options, and adding the ‘her mother has always wanted her to be assertive’ argument to the second hand, Hitoka comes to a decision. 

 

"Ok," she says, while banishing all the negative thoughts which immediately jump to the forefront of her mind. Hitoka will not allow mean people and her already weak self room for more failures. "I'll do my best!" 

 

-***-

 

Maybe wearing a disguise was a bit much.  

 

Hitoka had jabbed a cap onto her head and donned a pair of magenta framed glasses before hiding away in a seat with a clear view of the library door. She had arrived way too early; half an hour before Kozume was supposed to show up in the library, but preparation and precautions were something Hitoka was an expert at. 

 

She hopes she's fooling someone pretending to be engrossed in  _Alice in Wonderland_ when she's really just watching the doors like a hawk. 

 

Kozume walks through the doors at 11:06 and Hitoka tries not to implode with how fast her heart beats. She lifts the book higher to hide her face and, as soon as he passes, she quickly stuffs it in her bag and follows after him, hiding behind shelves every time he seems like he's going to look back. 

 

Hitoka is sort of excited for some reason. Maybe it's the spy like mission she's caught herself in, or just the novelty of it all. Yes she's still scared witless and more than a little nervous about confronting Kozume, but not as much as she'd been when she had first talked to him. 

 

Kozume settles in a spot at a table in the corner of the library. He sits in a chair with his back to the wall and pulls out his phone. 

 

Hitoka is at her last possible hiding place. If she leaves the safety of this bookshelf, Kozume is sure to see her. 

 

With her heart a thunderclap in her chest, she sprints out from behind the bookshelf and plops down in the chair opposite Kozume. She tears off her glasses and cap and whispers a breathless, " _Kozume-kun_." 

 

Kozume startles, his phone fumbling between his hands for a moment before he stares at her rather wide-eyed. He recovers quickly, placing his hand under the table in his lap and doesn't meet her eyes. There's something of a faint pink to his cheeks as he blatantly looks away from her, but there's also clear annoyance in the furl of his brow. 

 

"I'm really sorry and I really don't want to bother you but could you please just maybe look over my writing and telling me what I could work on? I promise it won't take more than a minute." Hitoka says in one breathe before she loses her strength. It's a feat in and of itself she doesn't stutter her way through her request, and she's the tiniest bit proud of herself for accomplishing it. 

 

Kozume sighs and meets her eyes once. 

 

"Yachi...san. I don't think I can help you—" 

 

"P-please try! You can just—" Hitoka dumps out half the contents of her backpack trying to swiftly pull out her papers from Creative Writing. She nearly shoves them under his nose when she holds them out. "—read it and tell me where I might be able to improve!" 

 

Kozume looks very unconvinced. 

 

"Please?" Hitoka adds pleadingly. 

 

Kozume lets out another annoyed huff. A moment later, he reluctantly takes the papers. 

 

Hitoka beams at him, and Kozume seems to lift the papers a little higher to hide his face after that. 

 

There are a few silent moments where Hitoka waits patiently as Kozume reads her writing. His eyes go back and forth over the paper, and Hitoka's nervousness is starting to override her earlier excitement. She can't read anything from his impassiveness, nothing he might be thinking about her piece, and it's making her nervous. 

 

He seems to have finished, if the lowering of the paper and his eyes darting to her face is anything to go by. Hitoka wrings her hands in her lap, unsure what to make of his silence. 

 

He opens his mouth, and then closes it. 

 

"Y-You don't have to worry about hurting my feelings or anything! Please be as harsh as you want to be!" she blurts out, taking his speechlessness as indecision. She hopes it doesn't add more pressure. 

 

Kozume sighs again, and gives a look to his phone. 

 

"Yachi-san—" 

 

"You can just call me Yachi if you want!" 

 

Kozume pauses, giving even more looks to his phone. 

 

"Yachi." Kozume's brow scrunches up as he studies her paper again. Maybe he's mulling over his critique? Contemplating the advice he could give? Trying to find a way to say it nicely? She'd already told him to be as blunt as he wanted, so Hitoka isn't sure what else to say to confirm her readiness to take anything. 

 

"I don't think I can help you." 

 

It comes as a surprise to both of them when tears well in her eyes. 

 

"I-it's that bad, huh?" she asks, failing to stamp the tears with her palms. She hadn't meant to cry, really. She'd been prepared for constructive criticism and harsh advice and anything Kozume would have said to her. But topping all her attempts and endeavors to be better with the notion that she's beyond help had hurt more than she ever could have imagined. 

 

She just wants to be better. Why was it so hard? 

 

Kozume, the understatement of a deer in headlights, blinks rapidly at her with wide eyes. His mouth is slightly agape and the surprise is so intense Hitoka feels bad for him. He reaches out his hands lamely but they stay close to his chest. 

 

Hitoka's shoulders shake with more sobs. If she can't stop it, she can at least try to be quiet about it. God, she feels so pathetic. She thought she was a bit better at dealing with the hardships of school and studying to not collapse into a nervous breakdown when the goings got tough. She is supposed to be an adult about this, able to remove her emotions from the situation and think on this rationally. Yet even with that rationality, all she can do is imagine her from an outside point of view and think how glaringly, annoyingly pathetic she is.

 

She presses a hand to her mouth, her vision continuing to blur as her tears fall onto her books and the papers scattered in front of her. 

 

 _I just want to be better_ , she thinks, and want so strongly for it to be true it hurts. 

 

The table breaks and collapses into itself. 

 

Hitoka is frozen, staring agape at the gaping black hole in the floor. It's all the moment she gets before her chair tilts forward and she falls completely into the darkness with arms outstretched and a scream on her lips. 

 

Her vertigo flips and she catches a glimpse of Kozume falling in as well, panic in his eyes as he reaches toward her with a, " _No!_ " 

 

She thinks, just as something like a hand encircles her wrist, that she hears something like a book clapping shut as the darkness completely envelopes them, but she can't be too sure because her eyes had rolled back and she had completely blacked out. 

 

 


	2. I’d rather people think I’m a weeaboo than make a girl cry, thank you very much

 

Kozume Kenma is pissed off. 

 

Even without confirmation on the matter, he knows this is Tora's fault. The idiot had never quite gotten it through his thick skull that their mutual circle of friends was enough for Kenma. He always pontificates about how Kenma should open up more and be more social and 'talk to people, man! So they don't keep thinking you're an introverted otaku or something!'

 

Right, because setting up Kenma to go through the traumatic experience of making a girl cry was  _totally_  better than being an otaku. Oh, and not only did he have go through that horrifying situation, oh _no_. Kenma had panicked, gotten the great way urge to get out of that situation, and now both he and the girl he had made cry are falling endlessly into Alice in Wonderland. 

 

Kenma thinks, if he listens very hard, he can hear karma clap a round of an applause in the background. 

 

They're still falling of course, courtesy of the nonexistent physical laws ruling Wonderland. Yachi has woken up and fainted about four times now, and Kenma had just plain given up and pulled out his 3DS to grind some of his tropes until this is over. 

 

Kenma curls up as best as he can while falling. He hopes his hair doesn't perpetually stick on end the way it is now when they reach the bottom. He is very uncomfortable with how clear his field of vision is. He also hopes the next time Yachi wakes up, she doesn't immediately faint again. He would like to brief her on the many, many,  _many_ abnormalities they are going to face when they land in Wonderland, and at least try to prepare her for them. 

 

His wish is answered after fainting spell #6, right after he had finally been able to beat the level he was stuck on. Yachi's eyes open slightly and take in the surroundings deliriously. Kozume thinks she's going to faint again, but she seems to be holding herself back on that front. Or, he thinks, that's what she's doing by staring at him like she's trying to either rationalize the perpetual fall or maybe even just forget it's happening. 

 

"K-K-K—" she stops, and takes a few deep breaths, with a hand on her chest to guide the motions. Kenma saves his game but keeps the console between his fingers. The whiplash of the fall continues to ruffle their clothing, and he's glad Yachi chose to wear pants today in contrast to her usual skirts. That would have been more than a little awkward. 

 

"Kozume-kun," she finally says, and Kozume would applause her if he was the type. "W-what's going on?" 

 

Now Kenma knows how this happened. He has the power to jump in books which he uses to great effects depending on the day. He usually just has to think 'I want to jump' and boom, he's back a hundred centuries or suddenly in queer witch hell, or even watching a basketball game of boys sprouting hair colors from every color of the rainbow. However, 1) he normally can't take people with him on jumps, or at least, as far as he's tried and 2) he hadn't actually willed a jump this time around. He hopes it doesn't affect their departure in any way. He isn't the fondest of Wonderland physics. 

 

He ends up saying something like— "—I, uh, can jump in books—" which gets caught off when the both of them fall straight into a wayward canvas, and then bounce off it Yachi immediately clings to him and screams bloody murder just as they fall right into an open drawer. 

 

They fall through it, Kenma's head ringing with how close and loud the shrill shrieks in his ears are, and tumble onto a bed of flowers. 

 

Yachi is shaking so bad Kenma is vibrating along with her. He almost feels bad for her, except he can barely  _breathe_  with how tight her grip is around him. 

 

Where is she even hiding this strength?

 

"Would you look at that, something I  _didn't_   drag in." 

 

A fluffy black cat with an unnatural smirk floats in front of where they have crumpled the flowers. Yachi somehow manages an even tighter grip, this time around his neck, and Kenma is  _really_   having trouble breathing. And being this close to someone for a longer period of time than strictly necessary. 

 

"H-how is that cat floating? How is it  _talking_? W-where are we? How—oh god, d-did I... Did I die? Is this—I-is this the afterlife? Oh no, no but I— I can't have actually..." 

 

" _Woah_ , Kenma, your friend looks two seconds away from a nervous breakdown. You should probably do something about that," says the cat, floating closer towards the girl, who finally lets go of Kenma in favor of scrambling away from the abnormality. 

 

Kenma was going to do that _anyway_ without having to be told to by a  _cat_. Except, as per usual in Wonderland, and with its inhabitants love for dramatic entrances, Yachi and him are abruptly introduced to twenty pointy spears ends. 

 

A woman with wild white hair held up by a red ribbon stands at the guards' backs. Decked in a uniform painted head to toe in crimson, she crosses her arms and gives him a disdained look, clipping her red boots against the floor. 

 

"What have I told you about dropping in the Queen's gardens unexpectedly, Kenma? It's always such a headache convincing her not to behead you." 

 

To absolutely no one's surprise, Yachi tips back in a fainting spell. 

 

" _Totally_  called that," cackles Kuro, tumbling through the air in glee with a _nyahahaha_!

 

"Your friend is rather faint hearted, isn't she?" says Shiro, with a very mean smile on her face. 

 

With as much annoyance as he can muster up, Kenma sighs. 

 

-***-

 

They are both thrown in jail. 

 

Kenma is parts nervous, and still parts pissed off. It's not  _his_  fault they dropped in the Red Queen's Royal Red Garden. He doesn't even know how the both of them got here. He hadn't initiated this jump, and Yachi shouldn't be here even if he had. But of  _course_  no one cares about the semantics. He is stuck behind red bars with dimmed red lights like a fucking kinky host club for something he didn't even do. All he had wanted was to finish his lab report in the library in peace and quiet. He had never asked for an unplanned trip to Wonderland with Yachi Hitoka of all people.

 

And, because karma is having a field day throwing all these mishaps his way, his 3DS now has a blinking red light.

 

The beheading doesn't sound too bad right about now. 

 

"First time I see you bring a friend here." 

 

Kenma does not jump. He turns to glare at Kuro, who’s leaning against the cell wall in a human form plus cat ears and a cat tail, thinking he's cool or something for sneaking up on Kenma like that. 

 

Kenma does not at all think he's cool. Kuro is closer to a mental category Kenma has labeled Annoying Friends Who Think They Known What's Best For Kenma. 

 

Three guesses to who _else_ is filed underneath that very particular division. 

 

Kenma doesn't answer, preferring to scowl at his reflection on the 3DS screen. Two Kenmas scowl back. 

 

Kuro chuckles heartily. "That's not a very happy face." A cat floats around him and wraps around his shoulders. "You should smile more! Look, I'll show you how!" 

 

The unnatural human grin on the cat's face is creepy AF. This is exactly what he was talking about when he'd said 'Think They Know What's Best For Him'.

 

Kenma shoves him, and Kuro the cat tumbles through the air with a yowl. 

 

"Go away." 

 

"Ok,  _fine_." Kuro easily slips through the bars with his agile form. "Geez, what's a cat gotta do to get some appreciation around here?" 

 

Kenma pauses. Now that he thinks about it, he probably shouldn't shoo away the few friends he has here. It's not like drawing the Go To Jail card was something new to him. It's happened before and maybe he does need a cat to cozy up to him and purr to make him feel better. 

 

"There's a mouse in the garden." 

 

A cat gets attached to his face faster than Kenma can say 'score'. 

 

"Where?! Hurry and tell me!" 

 

"It's—" Kenma wraps his hand around Kuro and pulls him away from his face. Kuro stubbornly keeps his paws on Kenma's face. Kenma's just glad he had the sense not to use his claws because that certainly would have been a bitch to drag off, "—in the garden. Where I fell. It ran away when it saw me." 

 

Kenma is rewarded with a mouthful of fur, a cat purring right in his face which is not at all what he'd wanted, and a quick, "I love you  _so_  much right now!" before Kuro vanishes out of thin air. 

 

Beheading sounds  _amazing_. 

 


	3. I’d like some Earl Grey with a side of beheading, please!

 

Yachi Hitoka is in Wonderland. 

 

She's fainted about seven times, which cannot be good for her health. So far, there's been the endless physics defying fall, a flying talking cat, walking taking playing cards which are actually guards with spears, an insanely beautiful woman dressed in Captain Of The Red Guards material, a ridiculous amount of objects which Hitoka didn't thing possible to come in red, a red castle, and an equally red jail. 

 

Did she mention she was in _jail_?  She's been in this new world for what, a few hours and she's already accumulated a criminal record.

 

Fainting spell #8 isn't too far off.

 

Kozume's explanation does little to return her heart to a normal staccato. 

 

So,  _apparently_ , Kozume can travel in books. Which, according to Kozume's jurisdiction, is enough of an explanation for Hitoka to understand everything. Hitoka, for her part, doesn't understand  _anything_. At _all_. Least of all the  _jumping in books_  part. 

 

However, it's not like there's any other plausible exposition Hitoka can wrap her head any easier than that one. So she believes it. Kozume Kenma Can Jump Into Books is a hair better than Yachi Hitoka Dies After Traumatic Creative Writing.

 

Barely. 

 

She doesn't really have time to think much on it when she remembers she left Dinah at home alone. 

 

"Oh no, how—how long have we been here? Oh god, I left my cat a-alone. I don't know if she has enough food and water and—and— _Oh god_ —"

 

"Time works differently here," Kozume says immediately. The tears leaking at Hitoka's cheeks hold. Kozume sits cross-legged, his back against the wall, a little ways behind her where she's kneeling in approximately the center of the cell. He doesn't meet her eye when she looks at him. It's something Hitoka had noticed he's never done, at least, with her.

 

"When we go back... it will be the same time we left." 

 

Hitoka breaths just a little easier at that even if she doesn't exactly understand how. If everything is the same when she gets back, that means she still has to get to has her three hour lab after this. She has no idea how she is going to do any experiments when her hands still haven't stopped shaking. The saving grace of falling into Wonderland, however, is that it served as a distraction long enough to swivel her journey away from The Spiral Of Doom And Gloom, which Hitoka is always,  _always_  grateful for.

 

Which reminds her of something else. How are they supposed to  _leave_  Wonderland? Do they have to climb back up the hour long fall? Hitoka isn't very good at climbing. Or do they have fall into another book? She doesn't even understand how they fell in the first one—

 

"We have to wait 24 hours... then we can go back." 

 

Hitoka hadn't known she was such an open book.

 

"O-oh…ok," she says lamely. She hesitates once, before getting up gingerly and walking carefully over to Kozume. He watches her rather confusedly as she fidgets. She manages to steel herself somehow and slide in a way next to him. Pushing her thumbs together, she finally manages to say, "Thank you, Kozume-kun." 

 

Hitoka doesn't need to be perceptive like Kozume to know he's confused. 

 

She smiles just a little at the scrunch in his brow. 

 

"You... you tried to grab my hand, to stop me from falling," she says. ”So, um, thank you. For that. I-I'm sorry this happened." 

 

Kozume doesn't say anything to that for a long time, and Hitoka is almost just going to leave it at that, when he goes, "I eat plot bunnies." 

 

Hitoka has no idea what that means. Did she miss something in the conversation? 

 

"W-what?" 

 

He finally turns away, and some hair slides away to show his ears. 

 

"I, uh, for Creative Writing. There are plot bunnies here, so, I, um... Kuro catches them for me, and if I eat one, I get... inspiration. That's why I... I didn't know how to help you." 

 

It's the most he's ever spoken to her, and all Hitoka can do is think of Kozume Kenma covered in blood butchering the fluffy white bunnies she watches videos about to calm her nerves. 

 

Her face goes pale, then green, and than a sort of pale green which cannot be good. 

 

"You  _eat_  them?" she asks, out of a sort of desperation for the answer to be a resounding no. 

 

"Yeah." Kozume shifts his feet together. "They respawn afterwards." 

 

Hitoka is going to throw up. 

 

The red wooden door at the far right unhinges and slams the wall with a thud. 

 

"I've finally secured your innocence," exasperates the Captain of the Royal Red Guard. Her red boots click against the paved crimson rock as she strides over to their cell. Hitoka curls up a little closer onto herself and just the tiniest bit closer to Kozume as the woman runs a hand through her silver bangs and places a hand to her hip. 

 

Hitoka is both thoroughly petrified and in complete awe of the terrifying beautiful woman. Not only does she probably have her own knightly fanclub from how pretty she is, but she could also probably cleave Hitoka in half without batting an eye. The dress uniform in complete crimson, from shirt to buttons to badges to cuffs to those little tussle like things, do little to hinder the image.

 

"There's been a condition placed while I bargained for your sinlessness, however." 

 

And then the pale woman in copious amounts of red smiles a smile like the terrifying beautiful predator Hitoka thinks her to be. 

 

"My queen would like to drink a cup of tea with your faint-hearted friend." 

 

Suddenly, foreign fantasy criminal record sounds  _wonderful_  compared to teatime with foreign fantasy _queen_. The amount of possible things that could go  _wrong_  is turning Hitoka a new shade of pale which has never existed before. She would rather fail Creative Writing or even eat a plot bunny whole than put herself in a situation as nerve wrecking as  _teatime with foreign fantasy queen_. 

 

"No," is what she's trying to say with her attempts at getting words out of her mouth. She's suddenly so much grateful for Bunny Devouring Kozume Kenma at her side than she's ever been before. 

 

The red captain of the guards leans against the bars, the cruel smile plastered to her face like glue. 

 

"Teatime or beheading," she reiterates menacingly, eyes closed in glee. "I'm quite a fan of both." 

 

_Teatime or beheading, teatime or beheading, teatime or beheading, teattimeorbeheading_ — Hitoka's mind promptly explodes at the endless horrible possibilities, and Fainting Spell #8 pounces and catches absolutely no one by surprise. 

 

-***-

 

When Hitoka wakes up, Fainting Spell #9 nearly takes her. 

 

Someone has changed her clothes while she was out. She had not been previously wearing a red pinup which hugs the sides she (sobbingly) doesn't have, and shows off the cleavage she ( _super_   sobbingly) doesn't sport. Nor had she been sitting on a red leather sofa in this red room before. Nor has she been on Wonderland without Kozume in sight. 

 

"K-Kozume-kun?!" 

 

The resounding silence is quick to a send Hitoka to her feet. 

 

She nearly toppled over because those are certainly not the sneakers she'd been wearing around her feet. 

 

She peers down and finds red stilettos sharp enough to kill a man attached to her pale feet. 

 

Hitoka does not do heels. People who wear heels normally walk and occasionally trip. Hitoka, however, is the type of person who normally trips and occasionally walks. 

 

A tumble and a flying fall perfect enough to make any volleyball player jealous later, Hitoka, with a very weary sigh, removes the heels and walks barefoot to the big red door. 

 

She reaches out to the handle just as it swings open. 

 

She jumps back, nearly tripping. An arm snakes around her waist and stops her fall, and Hitoka comes face to face with the captain of the red guard. 

 

The cruel smile is ten times more intense up close. Hitoka hopes the goosebumps ricocheting over her skin aren't visible.

 

"Have a nice little nap, my lady?" Hitoka could never faint long enough if she is being sent right back to the atrocious decision which had made her faint in the first place. "Well, you've napped quite enough. Come, the queen awaits." 

 

"Shiro!" 

 

Hitoka gets the shortest-lived reprieve. It's short because a six foot catman bounds over, a fluffy black tail swishing behind him, with a squirming child dangling from his mouth. The child continues to thrash and shout things like, "Let me go, you stupid cat!" even as catman stops short of them and all but dumps the child on the floor. It's about then Hitoka notices the round ears with orange tuffs that match the little girl’s hair, and the long thin tail poking out just as the child tries to dart. 

 

The captain of the red guard grabs her by tattered shirt covering her back and lifts her up off the floor. 

 

The redhead with round ears reminding Hitoka of Micky Mouse continues to thrash and kick about as the captain of the red guard turns to catman with a raised eyebrow. 

 

"And this is supposed to be what exactly..?" 

 

"It's a present!" He beams, and Hitoka doesn't know what to make of the six foot catman who looks like he wants to be praised for bringing home a mouse—

 

Wait. 

 

"Let me go! Let me go!" 

 

Hitoka's heart immediately goes out to the so very young mouse child. She is impossibly grateful the catman didn't do the...  _cat_  thing and bring something a little less alive to the captain of the red guard. That would've certainly introduced Hitoka rather intimately to Fainting Spell #9. 

 

"And what am I to do with this gift of yours exactly..?"

 

"That's up to you! You could eat it—" 

 

Hitoka and the mouse child go impossibly still at that. Hitoka tries very hard not to think of Plot Bunny and Mice Children stew.

 

"—or maybe even have a nyew tiny knyight on the team!" 

 

The catman coos at the petrified mouse child as Hitoka tries to process if she'd heard that right. Was it just her, or was there a cat's meow in place of the n's in that sentence? A sort of... cat lisp? 

 

The captain of the red guard eyes the mouse child dangling from her hand with an unreadable expression. Hitoka really, really, _really_ hopes she goes with the latter. She never ever _ever_ wants to see a child die before her eyes. 

 

Not that she'd let it happen without a fight. Maybe. She is sure she would at least _try_ to do _something_. 

 

"I suppose we require more creatures with exemption of beheading. It makes managing our lovely Queen's sporadic needs for death much simpler," says the captain, and Hitoka breathes a sigh of utter relief. The mouse child opens her mouth at that, however, and Hitoka fears they are not completely out of the Eat Mouse Child For Dinner woods yet when the captain continues, "Of course, the exemption of beheading goes for the knight and their families." 

 

The last statement brings hope Hitoka hadn't known was even gone rushing back to the mouse child's face. The captain places her back on the ground, and the mouse child continues to look at the captain like she's given her the greatest secret of the universe. There’s so much desperate hope in her features, Hitoka feels a little bad. 

 

What had the child gone through to ever lead her to make such a face? 

 

"It... it does?" asks the redhead mouse child, and _god_ , Hitoka is two seconds always from hugging her to her chest. The mouse child's eyes shine, like she can't believe this is all really happening, and Hitoka is one measly second away from The Hug. 

 

"Of course. The Red Queen gives all her knights special exemptions to many a thing." The captain of the red guard points down the length of the corridor. "Now run along that way until you come across a woman with hair of a crow and attire just like mine. Tell her Shiro sent you." 

 

The mouse child follows the hand and scans the end of the corridor. Hitoka can practically see the hope fill the little child's heart. The mouse child looks between the end of the corridor and the captain a few more times before throwing her tiny arms around the captain's legs with a "Thank you!" and then rushing down the hallway. 

 

The catman sidles up next to the captain with a grin worthy of his namesake. 

 

"Man, sometimes I wonder what would Queenie do if she knew how soft you are on the inside." 

 

The captain of the red guard turns to him with a smile capable of singlehandedly culling the greatest of humanity. 

 

"I should show my gratitude for your gift as quickly as possible." The captain mocks a thinking pose before snapping her fingers. "I know. Have you ever been defenestrated? I hear it works wonder for the heart."

 

The fluffy black tails whips as catman asks excitedly, "No. What is that?" 

 

The captain of the red guard smiles blithely, grabs the back of cat man's shirt, pivots of her heel and throw the six foot man across the room and out the window. It all happens so fast Hitoka almost misses it, only comprehending what happened after she hears the echoing yowl getting fainter and fainter. 

 

The captain of the red guard slaps her hand together. "Now that that's over with, I think we've kept my Queen waiting long enough." 

 

 

Hitoka's arm is looped around the woman's and she is dragged bodily out of the room. The plaster stone tiles are cold against the skin of her feet, and Hitoka becomes very increasingly aware of the palace she is in. 

 

It's magnificently  _ridiculous_. The red arcs spiraling up and connecting to a chandelier dazzling with every red shade known to man. The sculpted flowers and vines scattered around the walls, tangling around and up like the most beautiful ordered chaos. The columns holding it all up are shaped like the redwood of a tree trunk, all clear cut ridged edges perfect in their imperfections. Hitoka has seen pictures of palaces before, but nothing quite like this. 

 

The captain of the red guard leads her through one of the arches leading outside and Hitoka's breath catches in her throat. 

 

If the inside is gorgeous disorder, the outside is marvelous nitpicky precision. 

 

Hitoka is so used to seeing red, seeing green is a shocker. The bushes on either side of the red stone path are cut with mad accuracy. Not a single leaf brushes Hitoka while they walk. The red roses dotting the bushes are all separated by the exact same distance. Not a single one of the petals deviates from the trend. The path and the bushes open up to a patio worthy of a— 

 

Hitoka squeaks as the captain of the red guard pulls her close, just out of range of a flying teacup. 

 

"You're _late_! Do you know how long you've kept the Queen waiting—" 

 

"Forgive my ill-mannered interjection, but I choose to consider we are, in fact, _early_ , Lady Mika." 

 

'Lady Mika' has a glare hot enough to melt steel. The fire of her hair and of her flowing ballroom gown further strengthen the image. There is a shimmering red shale over her shoulders and dipping around her crossed arms. She clicks her tongue and _humphs_ with a disapproving sound. 

 

"Is Clockwork still not back from that vacation of his?"

 

Hitoka is too busy staring at the woman lounging in an armchair who cannot possibly be anyone other than the Red Queen. 

 

If Hitoka had thought she was showing too much skin, the deep dip in the Red Queen's cleavage alone is enough to put those thoughts to rest. How she manages to show more skin than Hitoka when her long flowing gown dips down to touch the floor is beyond Hitoka. Maybe it's because the sleeves flare out as the Queen brings a palm to her face, or how easily her legs are exposed when she crosses them, or maybe just the how the color is the closest thing to what a person with red skin would look like that has Hitoka with ears as red as the palace. 

 

The golden crown embodied with rubies fits perfectly on the blonde of her head. And Hitoka almost, almost gets lost in the beautiful amber shade of her eyes when the Red Queen opens her mouth with a snarl and slams a fist on the table. 

 

"Who's grand idea was it to give Koushi a break? I should chop their head off!" 

 

"It was yours, my queen," chirps the captain. Hitoka squeaks as the Red Queen glares at them. 

 

"And you're both supposed to stop my bad decisions, aren't ya? Off with both your heads!" 

 

Hitoka never gets to look at both of them in terror as Lady Mika just sighs and the captain chuckles at this. 

 

"And when exactly will my beheading finally come, your highness?" asks Lady Mika wearily, her heels clicking against the stone as she moves to sit in a chair adjacent to the Red Queen. 

 

"Yes, my queen, inform me when I may finally be put to rest," asks the captain with inappropriate cheer. "I do love watching you get around your own orders." 

 

The Red Queen grins wickedly, and opens her mouth, but Lady Mika beats her to it. 

 

"If you say tomorrow, then it will never come. If you say yesterday, then it has already happened. And if you say now, then it has already passed," articulates Lady Mika, humming after a pleasing degustation of the tea she had just poured herself. She smiles as the Queen scowls. "Is there anything else you would like to try? This is our one hundredth and fifth rendition of this conversation after all." 

 

The Red Queen slams a fist hard enough on the table to make Lady Mika jump back, nearly dropping her teacup.

 

"I demand a fucking solution to this stupid mumbo jumbo! Someone go find Koushi _now_  so I can give him a piece of my mind!" 

 

Lady Mika looks like she's been stricken with the greatest enlightenment in the world. Exactly like when Hitoka finds a solution to a particularly hard math problem. 

 

"You're a _genius_ , your highness! That's a _brilliant_ idea!" 

 

The Red Queen scrunches her brow, and even Hitoka can read the 'I am?' in her expression. But it's quickly replaced by a tilt to her head and a grin to her lips. 

 

"Of course I am! Who do you think you're talking to, eh?" 

 

The Red Queen continues to glow brighter and brighter as Lady Mika sings her praise. Hitoka is starting to feel her pride from all the way over where she's standing. 

 

She wishes she had some of it. 

 

"How long do you plan to stand there like a slack-jawed buffoon? Come join us for a sip of celebratory tea and tell us tales of your world." 

 

Between the impulsive Red Queen, Lady Mika's sharp tongue, and the captain of the red guard's doubtful loyalty, Hitoka is certain she's going to die of nerves before this teatime ends. 

 

Or of beheading. There isn’t much of a difference in Hitoka's books, to be honest.   

 


	4. Breaking out of a sports anime is just as easy as I make it look

Kozume Kenma is going to find a way to resurrect Lewis Carrol so he can kill him. 

 

"Yeah, so Koushi was whining and all like, 'I'm sick and tired of this stupid job!' You nyow, his usual. And then our super awesome Queen was all like, 'if you hate it so much, then just quit!'" Kuro snickers. "Nyobody's seen hair or tail of him since." 

 

Not even the outrageously stupid (and cute) cat lisp can make Kenma feel any better. 

 

Honestly, he should've expected something like this. The timeline here was already out of whack. There are times when Kenma has taken two consecutive jumps two days apart, and when he lands in Wonderland, they tell him it's been years since his last visit. There are also times when Kenma doesn't jump for a month, and when he finally does, hours have supposedly passed since his previous one. 

 

Kenma has no idea how Clockwork Koushi had even got the job of keeping time in the first place when he's so bad at it. But now he's gone and fucking quit, which leaves everyone in a never ending teatime, and Kenma and Yachi stuck in Wonderland. 

 

Actually, there  _may_  be hope for them yet. They're not Wonderland residents, so there may be a chance time doesn't apply to them the same way it does to a Wonderlandian, so _maybe_ if they wait for 24 hours they could go back home, but Kenma doubts it. 

 

The thing with jumping is, you lose time off your lifespan each time. A day spent in a book is nothing in the real world. However, if Kenma were to say, jump 365 times, and spent at the very least the mandatory 24 hours in each, Kenma would be a year older than all his fellow peers. Double that, then he'd actually be twenty one while Tora still rocked at nineteen. It's the price Kenma pays for sequestering away in fictional worlds. Something he can easily pay in increments, but never all at once.

 

They can't stay in this unpredictable equilibrium. He needs to find Yachi, and then figure something out that isn't Grumble In The Corner About The Unfairness Of The Universe. 

 

Not that Yachi will be of much help, but it's not like Kenma can leave her here, even if he really,  _really_   wants to. 

 

"Kuro, can you pick the lock?" 

 

Kuro grins at him like the Chesire Cat he is. 

 

"Oh, that's _kitten's_ play." 

 

-***-

 

On the border between spitefully leaving Yachi Hitoka in Wonderland and making sure she never has to see the Red Castle ever again, Kenma's stance shifts toward the latter just a bit. 

 

Between the boisterous Red Queen Saeko, and the silver-tongued Duchess Mika, Yachi Hitoka is a newborn cub between two grown lionesses. Kenma hadn't even known it was possibly for someone to look as petrified as Yachi is right now. She was already a short and petite girl to begin with, and, closed in on herself as she is now, she's a toddler next to the two royals. 

 

Kenma has about an entire foot in Return Yachi Hitoka Home territory. 

 

Saeko scowls darkly at him when he slips in next to Shiro. 

 

"Why is the hell is his head still attached to his neck?" 

 

Yachi  _somehow_  (really, the shade of her face is ridiculously pale. It's sort of impressive in a way) looks even  _more_  fearful at that, if the looks she sends him are anything to go by. It’s like she’s trying to shield him away through sheer force of will of something, even when she's the one who is about to knock her knees out. 

 

Kenma doesn't really appreciate the sentiment. 

 

"Oh, your highness, he's such a pitiful thing. Do you truly wish to end his poor life before he finds some enlightenment?" Shiro pontificates, lifting him off the ground by his underarms. Kenma tries to kick her and fails pathetically. She's isn't Captain of the Knights for nothing, after all. 

 

"Yes, your highness, your foolish captain has a valid point. It won't do well to put down your hero before his quest is over after all." 

 

Four people in the garden each gain a unique type of bafflement. 

 

"You _agree_ with me?" is the verbal manifestation of awed wonder on Shiro's part. 

 

"Why the hell do I need a hero for something I can do myself?" is the sort of angry confusion only the Red Queen can pull off. 

 

"Please no," is the desperate horror Yachi mouths, in a sort of compelled manor to defy something that is definitely going to happen. 

 

"No," is the only response Kenma allows from himself, because whatever the Duchess has in store cannot possible be something he'll like. 

 

The Duchess lets them stew in silence as she takes a long sip of tea. It's after a delighted hum and a smile promising something Kenma definitely won't be a fan of does she say, "We must send  _someone_  to find Clockwork Koushi, do we not?" 

 

-***-

 

It's worse than Kenma had imagined. 

 

To be fair, all things Kenma doesn't like are worse than he imagines. The reason being a combination of both him not having patience for any stage of anything he doesn't like, and his very limited imagination spam. If patience were a virtue he possessed, he wouldn't be as agitated as he is now, even if the quest they've forced him on under threat of stoning is something he shouldn't be particularly against. 

 

 

"I'm sorry," Yachi tries again. She's apologized about triple the times she's fainted, which is a lot. It's not really her fault, but she hadn't really helped prevent anything either. 

 

"It's nyot your fault! It wasn't like you could leave in the first place!" Kuro answers with unnecessary cheer. Kenma shoves him off his shoulders just in time to see Yachi stop abruptly, fear crisscrossing her face. 

 

"We...we can't leave?" 

 

Kenma is not dealing with this. 

 

He keeps walking, not bothering to even wait for her. Even if she starts crying, Kenma will carry on. All will be well once they find Clockwork Koushi. He doesn't have to deal with this now, or ever. If Yachi is just going to keep crying or fainting or getting herself in situations which make even more work for Kenma, then he's going to leave her behind. 

 

He doesn't have time for more liabilities with the remainder of their lives at stake. 

 

"Hey." The furry weight against his neck is back. "Your friend looks pretty shaken back there. Aren't you gonna, you knyow, say something?" 

 

"She's not my friend." Ok, so Kenma has resolved to kindergartener tactics to solve his problems. Which is fine. The world seemed like such a simple place when he was kid. If reliving those years is what takes him back home, then so be it. 

 

" _Kenma_ , come on, don't be like that," Kuro whines, padding up Kenma's face to look behind them. "She looks  _really_   shaken. Kind of like you when your weird machine thing has a red light—"

 

"It's called a 3DS." 

 

"—and it's making  _me_  sad. Sooo, do something about it?" 

 

"Why don't  _you_  do something then?" Kenma attempts to keep walking, but then the weight around his shoulders increases, and he's now being held back by a six foot tall catman. 

 

"I am but a humble cat," says the stupid cat annoyingly. Kenma can  _feel_   the smirk without even seeing it. "You, on the other hand, are a human. Just like your friend. She'll take reassurance from you better than she would from a humble cat such as myself."

 

"I don't  _care_." Kenma shoves Kuro off, ignoring the low tilt to his ears and how his puffy tail sticks close. For some reason though, instead of stalking off, Kenma just turns away, aiming his annoyance at the ground. Playing the kindergartner card with Yachi is fine, but with someone who is actually his friend, it makes him feel the slightest sense of regret. Which he tries really hard to stammer before Kuro can catche it but he's too late. 

 

"For me?" he adds, with a small victorious grin like Kenma has already gone over and smoothed things over. Kenma releases a long, tired sigh, and fixes Kuro with his best I Really Don't Want To Do This expression.  

 

"Oh, come on. You make it look like I'm telling you to go slay a jabberwocky or something! Just go over there, and say, 'It'll be alright. Leave it all to me.'" Kenma does not sound like that at all, nor would he ever say those words outside of any mandatory, video game protagonist dialogue context. The cringe across his face intensifies. 

 

"Here," Kuro flings out his hand, and waggles his eyebrows and fingers manically, "I'll hold your hand." 

 

Kenma, straight faced and no hesitation, takes the hand. Not because he actually needs it, but so he can relish in the sweet revenge that is watching Kuro's face glow up like a Christmas tree. That's how Kenma deals with the friends in his Think Their His Mom category; by being unexpectedly bold to catch them off guard. 

 

Kuro immediately poofs back into a cat and swims through the air a good distance away from Kenma. 

 

" _Kenma_!" he sputters in a hiss or a yowl or whatever sound a flustered cat makes. "Don't do that with— _with that face_!" 

 

This is the same cat who makes dirty jokes and is trying to woo the captain of the red guards. 

 

After throwing the most deadpan expression he can make at Kuro (who sticks out his tongue at it), Kenma steels himself and walks back over to Yachi. 

 

She's... not crying at least. She's curled up at the bark of a nearby tree, however, looking like she really wants to be doing just that. Kenma wants to call it pathetic, but when he thinks about it, he'd practically told her she could never see her family and friends ever again. Or anything else from that world she may  have held dear. Of course, Kenma hadn't meant to say that, nor was it an actual fact, it had just... come out that way. 

 

He should fix this. 

 

"Yachi," he begins, and she peers up at him so slowly, Kenma has to look away. He's not good at this, even more so with people  _he's never talked to before_. He doesn't get why Yachi kept asking after him. Sure he's good at Creative Writing, but he never talks to anyone in that class. He barely knows the faces of his classmates, too. He's the last one to arrive and the first one to leave. He doesn't participate in any way outside of his assignments. He has no idea what Yachi Hitoka had seen in him and deemed worthy for asking questions. 

 

But he guesses even if she's horrible at choosing people, he doesn't have to be an asshole about it. 

 

"I, uh..." Choosing to not be an asshole, however, does not mean Kenma will suddenly gain the power to not mess this up more than he already has. "He didn't mean, um, when Kuro said we couldn't leave that, uh, it isn't something that... we just can't leave now. At this moment." 

 

 _Great start_ , informs a sassy part in himself which sounds a lot like Kuro. However, hope seems to have bloomed inside Yachi somewhere along his words so Kenma continues despite literally everything.

 

"If we find Clockwork, we can leave. So, um, not leaving is just a temporary thing." 

 

Yachi starts tearing up. Kenma has blown this to hell and back.

 

"W-we can go back?" she asks in a hoarse voice. Kenma realizes, rather stupidly, that the tears pooling at her cheeks are those of relief and not of despair. Which means he has actually done something correctly. He had gone into a social situation, with someone he barely knows, and ended it with a result he had wanted. He had done it. He just did it.

 

Kenma is sort of proud of himself. 

 

"Yeah," he says, and _woah_ , this feeling of accomplishment blooming inside of his chest is... really nice. "We can." 

 

-***-

 

They can't do this. Whatever feelings of grandeur and hope his past self had felt were all wrong. There is no hope. They're going to be stuck here forever. Past Kenma was a fucking dumbass. 

 

So, get this, they've been traveling around, asking whoever they meet along the path if they've heard where Clockwork Koushi might be, and, as Kenma's luck loves letting him down, they come back with a lot of negative answers. 

 

"Who?" 

 

"Never heard of him." 

 

"Ehhhh? Clockwork's on vacation?" 

 

"Koushi did _what_?" 

 

"Who?" 

 

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Who knew old Koush had it in him!" 

 

"Seriously? Like, _seriously_?" 

 

"Who?" 

 

Kenma's meager seed of hope withers up and dies two answers in. Even when he sees Yachi go up to some guy with a dark crewcut lazing around with a tennis racket in one hand, and the most ridiculous striped shirt, Kenma's only thoughts are to join Crewcut on his apathetic journey to find a fashion sense.

 

With a face impassive enough to make any wall jealous, Fashion Confused Crewcut somehow manages to gain a thoughtful look to his face. Kenma can already hear the unspoken "Who?" about to drop from his mouth, and keeps walking when the guy goes, "Yeah, I think he's at the—" 

 

Kenma whips around, right at the moment Fashion Confused Crewcut's evil doppelgänger shows up, all like " _Osamu_ , what do I always say about giving out free information?", and single-handedly manages to ruin Kenma's expectations with a single sentence. 

 

That's the story of how Kenma's life turns into a fucking sports anime. 

 

"Love-30!" yowls Kuro, sunbathing on the high white chair next to the red and white tennis court. Kenma attempts to glare at the cat, but the sweat across his forehead makes his hair stick uncomfortably to his face and is really messing up his already limited field of vision. He's breathing heavily, his grip on the racket in his hand barely there, and a glance behind him informs Yachi is in the same boat. 

 

" _Wow_! You're really aiming for that pudding left out in the sun look, aren't you!" 

 

A squawk from the opposite side of the court manages to ease Kenma's murderous intent just a little. The original (and gentler) Fashion Confused Crewcut whacks his twin on the head, saying something like, "Be nice," right after he takes a pointed look in a direction behind Kenma. 

 

Kenma would be grateful if the original one goes easy on them because of Yachi, but then, during his serve, he comes at them with a flying jump serve and a ball that whizzes by Yachi's face so fast, her hair flies.

 

Kenma banishes previous thoughts of the original being the 'gentler' one. 

 

The evil twins have won two flawless sets. Kenma and Yachi hadn't been able to score a single point. It's not like they have to win either. The deal is if they manage to steal two points from the masters of tennis themselves, they get their lead on Clockwork Koushi. Kenma had thought his meager knowledge in Wii Sports tennis and Yachi's... _something_ would win them easily. And yet, here they are, in their third set without having scored a single point. It's ridiculous, and annoying. Why did it have to be tennis of all things? Couldn't it have been a game of chess or something? At least with that, Kenma didn't have to go running around after tiny tennis balls under the blazing sun. 

 

Kuro calls for a timeout, which Kenma isn't sure exist in tennis, but the evil twins don't stop them. Kenma sits down on the floor, and then promptly falls over, limbs splaying all over in an attempt to melt into the ground. 

 

Yachi walks over, and falls to her knees, chest rising up and down as she takes heavy breathes. 

 

"Kozume-kun," she gasps, bringing a hand to her chest as she catches her breath. Kenma peers up at her, but the glare of the sun catches his eyes and forces him to look away. "I -I think... um—only if you're ok with the idea!— that we... we need a plan." 

 

Kenma's eyebrow twitches. What does she think he's been doing this whole time? Randomly hitting balls in hope of landing a lucky shot or triggering some flashback on the opposing side which will stall them long enough for Kenma to win? Contrary to popular third party belief, this isn't actually a _sports_ anime. 

 

"How long are the two of you going to lament your continued loss? It's really admirable how you haven't given up just yet, but it's also getting old," taunts the eviler one with a smirk, leaning on his racket. Kenma gives a pointed look to the original from the floor. It's barely been two seconds.

 

"He's not being nice." 

 

The original holds up his hands, including the one with the racket, in defeat. "I tried." 

 

Kenma huffs and looks back to Yachi. "Do you have any ideas?" he asks bitterly, not because he actually expects or wants an answer. Or, well, he'd like a solution, he just doubts whatever willpower or power of friendship babble Yachi would probably drop is going to help much. 

 

Except she goes in an entirely different direction than he predicts. 

 

"What if we, um— only if you're ok with it that is! W-what if we... ask someone to play on our behalf?" 

 

Kenma blinks once, then shoots up like a rocket, the annoyed scrunch in his face disappearing as the realization of _Yachi Hitoka Is Freaking Genius_ hits him like a molotov cocktail to a rosebush. 

 

Predictably, she takes his struck, wide eyed reaction completely wrong.

 

"I'm s-so  _sorry_! It was a terrible,  _horrible_  idea! It's against the rules, isn't it? O-oh no, now we'll be disqualified and then we'll never know where Clockwork Koushi is and then we'll be stuck here  _forever_ —" 

 

"That's a good idea." 

 

Yachi stares at him, with something Kenma really hopes aren't waterworks, and says, "Really? It's... it's not against the rules?" 

 

They're in  _Wonderland_.  _Stuck_   in an infinite teatime loop in the Alice in Wonderland world. 

 

 _What_  rules? 

 


	5. When in doubt, rely on the children

 

The captain of the red guard steals an entire set from the champion tennis players.

 

The name of their savior is supposedly Shiro, which Hitoka hopes against hope is her last name. She can't bear the thought of all the horrors that could go wrong with calling a foreign delegate by first name. The woman's victorious grin is smugness with a cherry on top. Even the cherry probably has a tiny little marker smirk doodled on it with how much her lips are pulled back. 

 

The twin champion tennis players take this loss very differently. The one Hitoka had spoken to first, with the darker hair, gives a sort of resigned smile and a shrug when the ball Shiro serves ricochets from a spot a foot away from him, scoring the second point they need to win the deal. The other twin, with the lighter hair and the meaner streak, throws something Hitoka really doesn't want to call a tantrum, but can't really think of a nicer word to label it. 

 

He's still huffing and puffing when the dark haired twin walks up to them.

 

"Didn't know you had pull with the royal guards. I'm sort of impressed," he says, with a small smile and a tone that doesn't at all sound impressed. Still, Hitoka feels just the tiniest surge of pride course through her. The plan she had come up with had come leaps and bounds and baring gifts. It's been awhile since something she's planned worked the way she had wanted it to. It sequesters her conscious in a place she doesn't visit often enough, and she feels amazing to finally visit the land of Cupcakes and Rainbows again. 

 

It's the one place where Hitoka feels like she's finally improved as person in a way. 

 

" _Hah_! That's what you get for underestimating the tiny blonde ones!" taunts Kuro the black cat before arching his back and purring next to the face of neither the tiny blonde ones he's so proud of. The distasteful cringe marring the captain's face goes completely over the ridiculous tuft of fur sprouting between his angular ears. 

 

"I didn't though," affirms the dark haired twin at the same time Kozume grumbles, "I'm not tiny." 

 

Unknown to Hitoka, the pointed affirming smile the dark haired twin sends her way goes completely over her own head as well.

 

"Are you done? I want ice cream." The lighter haired twin throws himself on his brother's back and hangs off there like a particularly brooding child. 

 

Dark Haired Twin sighs. "Why does your mental age always go down five years after a match?"

 

"Shut up." 

 

"I was informed," begins Shiro, delicately seizing the scruff of Kuro's neck to pull him off her shoulder. He yowls and digs his claws into her uniform in protest. She rolls her eyes and leaves him be, "that you had information on the whereabouts of Clockwork Koushi." 

 

Here, Hitoka waits with bated breath. Who knows the sort of location Wonderlandians deem vacation worthy. It could be the last room in a high tower guarded by a dragon, where Clockwork Koushi could read books to his heart's desire. Or some island protected by a monster infested sea where he could relax in peace and quiet. Or at the end of a thorn ridden labyrinth having his own little teatime. Or worse, on a tiny patio hidden away barbecuing  _plot bunnies_ —

 

"He's at The Beach." 

 

Hitoka has the wildest notion Kozume is about to go  _Huuunnh?_

 

On further examination, he looks like he's about to go bang his head against a nearby tree. 

 

Hitoka is just grateful no plot bunnies are being harmed in the duration of this plot twist. 

 

-***-

 

After much hair-pulling, name-calling, and toe-stepping (really, Hitoka hadn't at all expected all that from Kenma, let alone the royal captain of the Knights just because of a suggestion of sleep), they decide to rest for the night before moving on. 

 

Well, not really a night since the sun hasn't move in the least ever since they fell in Wonderland. Though, the sunshine flitting through the curtains is but a second thought when she lays eyes on the bedroom. 

 

The bed dwarfs her by a margin which is almost pitiful. Three people could fit very comfortably in the massive four poster. And that's not even taking into account the satin mountain of pillows at the headrest. Hitoka might be able to make an entire other bed just out of those. And everything is so soft to touch; the comforters, the blankets, the sheets, she can barely believe it's _real_. 

 

Dinah would have loved this. 

 

Hitoka plumps down forlornly at the foot of the bed, wishing her beloved cat were here. If Hitoka could just be given the chance to bury her face in her fur, she'd feel so much better about this entire situation. 

 

It's the first time today she's had a moment to breathe and just think about... everything. There's a part of her that still solemnly believes this is all a very weird dream. It's a small part though, eclipsed by the fact there being no way she should be able to feel all these sensations in a dreamscape. Still, as much as it's all overwhelming to her, there's something to be said about escaping into a fantasy world right at the moment she needed an escape most of all. 

 

Hitoka pokes her fingers through her pockets and pulls out a golden ballpoint point. It's shiny enough for Hitoka to be able to see her own face staring back at her. 

 

 

_"Hey. Blondie. Wait up."_

_Hitoka lags behind the bickering group and turns to face the Dark Haired Twin jogging up to her. She gets a bit intimated by how tall he is compared to her, but she thinks the twins have both proved their harmlessness outside of tennis matches. Probably. Hopefully. Hitoka is a little too relived about the hands empty of tennis rackets._

_Dark Haired Twin rubs the back of his neck for a moment. Hitoka honestly has no idea what he could possibly want. She just hopes it’s not a request for a rematch or something because dear lord does she never want to see another tennis ball again in her life._

_"Are you a hero?"_

A hero? _Hitoka cocks her head. What sort of question was that? Was hero a codename for something in Wonderland? Nothing immediately jumps to her mind, though. She hopes it isn't anything secretly offensive or anything someone would take offensive to if met with ignorance._

_"I'm sorry?"_

_Dark Haired Twin's hand slides down to the side of his neck. "So you're not then." He gets a sort of thoughtful look about him and mumbles softly, "Koushi might not give favors to someone who isn't a hero...what to do, what to do—Oh."_

_Hitoka is still very,_ very _confused about what's going on when Dark Haired Twin starts padding down his pants and rummaging through his pockets in search of something. There's quite a number of them actually, and Hitoka is sure there is no possible way he's going to be able to empty all his pockets by today when Dark Haired Twin pulls out a pen of all things with a triumphant, "Found it."_

_He holds it out to her. "Here. For you."_

_Hitoka automatically refuses on principle, but Dark Haired Twin grabs her hand and bodily places the pen between her fingers._

_"You'll need this. It's easier for someone to become a hero with a sword."_

_There is, in fact, a pen in Hitoka's hand. A fact Hitoka is very grateful for because Sword and Yachi Hitoka do not go in the same sentence._

_"Go on, click it. I wanna see something."_

_Hitoka really hopes this doesn't do what she thinks it's about to do._

_It does it._

_The only reason she doesn't fumble with the honest to god sword now in her hands is because her entire body has frozen solid. The ice in her bones is the only thing keeping Hitoka from accidentally impaling someone._

_Very slowly, she looks up at the Dark Haired Twin with a look that says 'help me' with every fiber of her being._

_He grins at her._

_"Yeah, now I'm sure. Click the button on the hilt to turn it back."_

_Hitoka clicks it faster than she's ever done anything before. She shoves the pen back at Dark Haired Twin._

_"I-I can't accept this!"_

_"Hey. Hey, listen," the pen somehow makes it back into her hand, and Hitoka's knees are already wobbling at the thought of a sword at her side. She barely hears what Dark Haired Twin says next._

_"There was this guy who came here once. His name was Rick or something? Had the same exact look you just had on his own face when I gave him this. That guy? He's a hero now. To a whole lot of little kids."_

_There's a shimmer in Dark Haired Twin's eyes._

_"Don't you want to be a hero, too?"_

 

 

 

Hitoka wants... 

 

The golden pen catches some sunlight and flashes too close to her eyes.

 

Hitoka wants to go home. 

 

-***-

 

After a few hours of rest, they head out to continue their journey. 

 

Well, a few hours of rest may be an understatement to the morning Hitoka had just experienced. 

 

She wakes up groggily to the sound of shouting, which she's still surprised didn't send her immediately into panic mode. Or at all. Imagine that. Yachi Hitoka waking up in strange foreign bedroom with guerrilla shouting match outside and her only reaction is to turn the other way and continue sleeping. It'll make the headlines everywhere. Her mother would be in teary delight.

 

It dies down, and it's here where Hitoka finally slips out of bed and goes to investigate. 

 

Opening the large wood red door greets her to a sight Hitoka is slowly becoming used to. She's talking about the royal red interior, of course, and not about the hair pulling competition between Kozume and the captain. 

 

The captain smiles widely at her. "My lady, I was just informing Kenma that you're both late for teatime—" the sentence is caught off from an annoyed grunt as Kozume chooses this opportunity to yank the silver ponytail he has in his hand. 

 

"We're going to find Clockwork so we can leave," he says before cringe mirrors his own facial features when the captain returns the hair tug. Hitoka winces and almost wants to rub at her own scalp, having personal knowledge of how much that hurts. 

 

And really, her stomach would love some food right now, but her heart can't stop reading ' _teatime_ ' as _'potential beheading_ '. 

 

"You will eat," the captain reiterates, giving another good yank before grasping the higher part of her hostage ponytail in an attempt to lessen the damage of a returned blow. 

 

Kozume favors using both of his hands when returning the blow instead of mimicking the defense tactic. 

 

"We're going to find Clockwork. So we can leave." 

 

"Food." 

 

"Clockwork."

 

"Food." 

 

"Clockwork." 

 

"A-actually, I'm not very hungry—" 

 

Hitoka is betrayed by her own growling stomach. She can't tell if the sound actually echoes in the hall or if that's just her embarrassment intensifying.

 

Kozume pauses with an owlish blink to his eyes mid-hair-pull. He immediately looks to floor when he catches her eyes, and, after a long quiet moment where Hitoka's embarrassment levels are over nine thousand, he says softly, "We'll take something with us." 

 

He immediately continues the hair tug when the triumphant smirk across the captain's faces reaches maximum smugness. 

 

Hitoka and Kenma are then bombarded with cupcakes. Actually bombarded. As soon as they enter the kitchen, cupcakes come sailing at them as a furious Lady Mika criticizes, " _You're late!"_

 

The only reason Hitoka doesn't suddenly have an intimate session with cupcake frosting is because her survival instincts kick in and she immediately ducks behind the captain with an _eep_. Kozume isn't so lucky. 

 

"My perspective, my lady, believes otherwise." The captain swipes some frosting off Kozume's head, ignoring the glares of both him and the lady as she licks the frosting off her finger. 

 

There's an improving hum before the captain comments, "These are better than your previous attempts. I would like fifty." 

 

The captain of the red Knights lives up to her name as she snatches the incoming cupcake out of thin air and digs into with a happy chomp. 

 

After they've all filled their cupcake quota for the next year, Hitoka and Kozume finally can get back on track on their journey. 

 

Except they gain a new tag along. A tiny familiar redhead with the Mickey Mouse ears and a tiny red uniform that matches both the captain of the red guard's and the other black haired woman that comes along to see them off. 

 

The new woman and the tiny mouse girl look absolutely nothing alike, yet she sees off the tiny mouse girl like a mother would a daughter. 

 

"Do you have everything? Your sword's just been polished, right? Are your boots laced too tight? Is your uniform ok? Oh, do you have to go?" The woman pats down and smooths every crinkle on the little mouse girl's red uniform until it’s pristine enough to win a Nobel award. 

 

"Leave the girl be, Kanoka. You're not her mother," critics Shiro, right after she pulls some spare lint off Kozume's shoulder. 

 

He gives her a look only Hitoka catches. 

 

'Kanoka' gives her the same exact look, right before she goes back to worrying over the tiny mouse girl with an almost teary fever. 

 

"Are you sure you're ready? You can always take on another quest—a _much_ easier and _much_ simpler one—" 

 

"I'm fine, captain! I'm ready to prove my worth!" 

 

Kanoka almost seems more teary eyed at that, but then she hugs the little mouse girl fiercely and whispers, "Stay safe, Natsu." 

 

"Are you guys ready to go or nyot?" 

 

Kuro the black cat finally makes his reappearance and immediately drapes himself on Kozume's head. Kozume looks as done with this situation as those people who'd been forced to listen to seven rendition of an old American song Hitoka had seen in a video once. 

 

"Yes," he says for all of them, before turning around and leaving. Hitoka says some quick goodbyes before rushing after him. It's a moment before the tiny red solider—Natsu?— is at her side with a determination in her step Hitoka doesn't ever think she could have found at that age.

 

Hitoka peeks behind her one last time. Kanoka is weeping. Shiro rolls her eyes before she roughly ruffles the black locks. Crying Kanoka bats her hands away, and, even with the tear streaks down her face, something like determination fills her bright eyes. 

 

Hitoka looks back ahead, feeling like she's witnessing something she isn't meant to see. 

 

Hitoka touches the fabric of her pocket. The shape of the golden pen meets the trace of her fingers. 

 

 _"I just want to be better,"_ Yachi Hitoka had once said, with tears in her eyes and despair in her heart. 

 

_"Don't you want to be a hero, too?"_

 

 _Maybe_ , she thinks.  _Maybe_. 

 

-***-

 

"Kozume-kun, do you think—" 

 

"No." 

 

"B-but... are you sure? It looks really familiar—" 

 

"No." 

 

"..." 

 

"..." 

 

"B-but it looks exactly the same as the movie—!" 

 

"Yes." 

 

Hitoka feels a little too giddy and accomplished at her victory. Kozume doesn't meet her eyes or her smile as he rubs his upper arm. Hitoka has noticed he isn't the greatest with looking people in the eye—or, well, looking _her_ in the eye, but he seems to be slowly getting over it. She feels a little happy about that accomplishment, too. 

 

But really, the gigantic twelve legged cat with the bus appendage on its back looks uncannily familiar to the Ghibli movie. The colors are off, with a grayish tinge and black spots instead of the original cream and brown spots, but it's _eerie_ how alike they are. Hitoka isn't sure if it's a coincidence, or if it means, according to Hitoka's own personal theory, Miyazaki once found himself in Wonderland just like Kozume and Hitoka had. 

 

"Hey, ya old cat!" yowls Kuro, walking around on the ginormous sleeping cat head like he owns it. "Wake up! I need a favor!" 

 

One of the gigantic eyelids uncovers. The huge sharp pupil staring at them gives Hitoka second thoughts about checking Ride In A Cut Bus off her childhood bucket list. The cat could eat her whole in one bite. She'd taste exactly like cupcakes too; she can still feel the overload of frosting at the top of her throat. 

 

"What are mewling about, kitten?" asks the giant bus cat with a deep scratchy voice. Hitoka is really starting to have third and fourth thoughts about this. 

 

Kuro, oblivious to Hitoka's inner dilemma, swipes at one of the gray ears five times his size in agitation. 

 

"Who are you calling a kitten? I'm an old tom, just like you!" 

 

The bus cat closes the one giant eye it had opened. 

 

"No nose knows like a gnome's nose knows." 

 

Kuro bristles, his fur stands on end, but then something like steel flashes in his cat pupils. 

 

"Nyo nyose knyows like a gnyome's nyose knyows— _god_ _dammit_!" 

 

The resulting grin of the bus cat almost goes full circle. 

 

"What does the little kitten desire?" 

 

Kuro stretches and sprawls across the head of the cat bus, his tongue out like he's accidentally bitten it (probably has). There's a mope in his movements even Hitoka can read. 

 

"Can you take us to the Beach?" 

 

Kuro tumbles over as the bus cat yawns. White fangs as tall as Hitoka gleam menacingly. Hitoka's knees join the Not Sure About This Plan act with a wobbly salute. 

 

"Perhaps." 

 

The bus cat opens both its eyes and stares at Hitoka and Kozume with an intensity Hitoka can feel reach the marrow in her bones. Hitoka spies Natsu reach for the sword at her side. The ginormous cat must not be giving the mouse girl the best of feelings. 

 

"Is one of you to become a hero?" 

 

Hitoka is shaken once more by the question already plaguing her mind. Does she want to bookend this journey with a title for herself in the ranks of heroes? Or does she want to stay herself and return home like nothing has ever happened? Is there something to be found in her friendship with Kozume Hitoka would have never been able to find herself, or was it all just a horrible mistake? 

 

Does she want to be a hero? 

 

 _I want to be better_ , Yachi Hitoka had cried. 

 

"Y—" 

 

"Nekomata! You owe  _me_  a favor, remember?" 

 

The bus cat chuckles deeply, the sound travels and vibrates. 

 

"How could I forget such originality?" 

 

Hitoka swears the ground creaks when the bus cat rises to all twelve feet. It shuffles to the side, and one of the square hole-like windows in the bus attachment on its back shifts and grows in size, until there's enough space for all four of them to walk into the bus. 

 

The seats are made of fur-like material soft to touch. When Hitoka takes a seat, the feel of the fur against her hand reminds her again of Dinah. What Hitoka would give just to hear one her hungry meows right about now. 

 

Natsu and Kozume each take a seat on either side of her, both with fearful expressions. Kuro trots in and leaps into Kozume's lap. Even though Kozume lets out a disgruntled noise, he leaves the cat be. 

 

"Onward! To infinite and beyond!" taunts the bravest amongst them, who also happens to be the smallest. 

 

Natsu seems to sense this, and opens her mouth to say something, only to shut it immediately when Mr Bus Cat leaps into the air and up into the trees. 

 

There's a lot of screaming after that. 

 

Some of is happy and excited (Kuro), some of it is fearful and horrified (Hitoka). Hitoka immediately closes her eyes tightly, not wanting to give herself more nightmare fodder. She can barely hear anything, either. Her heartbeat is in her ears and drowning out her thoughts. But she can feel the air and whiplash of it against her skin. It's almost nice, too. However, she's too busy screaming to enjoy it. 

 

It's a few moments after that when she feels a hand enclose one of hers and an excited shout that isn't Kuro. 

 

"Lady Yachi! Lady Yachi! Look! It's  _amazing_!" 

 

Hitoka only opens her eyes to relive them a little from the tightness. Yet the sight greeting her strikes a deal that may entail never closing them again. 

 

Sequestered away in a round alcove where the sea overrides the land, is a beach with sand every color of the rainbow. It starts of a dark purple to the right, before it slowly fades into an indigo and then blue and lighter. It continues this trend across the entire expanse of the sand, going from light blue to green to yellow to orange and then ending in a perfect red at the left side. The ocean water is clear enough for Hitoka to continue to see the rainbow sand go on into eternity, like a rainbow road that goes on forever. It almost reminds Hitoka of one of those racetracks in Mario Kart—

 

_Just how many people have fallen here before?!_

 

"It's so cool! All the colors are just like—! Like—! All _wooooah_ and _wooosh_!"

 

There are barely contained squeaks at the end of her sentences that make Hitoka giggle. She glances down at their conjoined hands. Only, the hand in hers is a little too big to be Natsu's, and on the wrong side. 

 

The bus cat alights on the top of a palm tree and springs down onto the sandy floor before Hitoka can think on it more. Natsu squeaks as the bus tilts sideways and they're all dumped out onto the beach. 

 

The cat bus leaps back atop the palm tree with a hearty chuckle escaping its throat. 

 

"Good luck, heroes to be." 

 

The bus cat disappears within the tree tops. Hitoka shouts a goodbye automatically. 

 

There's a lot of whooping and cheering as Natsu and Kuro, now a six foot catman with cat print swim trunks which looks suspiciously like the cats from Neko Atsume (Hitoka is not even going to bother to pretend her theory isn't true anymore) run laughingly to the water. 

 

She doesn't have time to think about why Kuro, the six foot catman, is excited about water of all things when she's too busy chasing Kozume, who's made a beeline for a single umbrella propped at the center of a the beach. 

 

She reaches him just in time to see him scowl. Hands on her knees to catch her breath, she finally catches sight of the person lounging under the umbrella on a beach chair. 

 

A woman beautiful enough to make Hitoka blush stretches out on the length of the white beach chair. There's a book between her slender manicured fingers, and a pair of dark sunglasses over her unblemished face. Her long, luscious, dark locks match the color of the tiny bikini she wears. Somehow, Hitoka can feel the uninterested once over the beautiful woman asses them with before she returns to her book, and, also somehow, Hitoka can feel the murderous intent of the fanclub the beautiful woman is sure to have on the back of her neck. 

 

Kozume is completely unaffected. 

 

"Where's Clockwork," he demands, with a glare hot enough to make Lady Mika jealous. 

 

The beautiful woman doesn't even spare him another glance at the question. 

 

Hitoka is starting to worry Kozume is going to lose his patience with these Wonderlandians eventually. She just hopes whatever anger punch building up doesn't get introduced to this particular woman. 

 

"Tell me where—" 

 

"Kiyoko! Look at me!" 

 

Hitoka and Kozume immediately whip around at the sound of the voice. It comes from far out into the ocean, where a pale man with starlight hair and aqua blue swimming shorts waves at them from atop a surfing board. 

 

He immediately gets whipped out by a huge wave from behind. 

 

Hitoka's heartbeat reaches her throat. She really hopes they didn't travel all this way only for Clockwork Koushi to die on them. 

 

Thankfully, the man comes back up alive. Soaked to the bone and coughing up water but alive. He swims back to the beach and clumsily wades through the shallows back to the safety of the beach where Hitoka can finally let out a breath of relief. 

 

"I was doing so good, too," he pouts, with a final cough to clear out his throat. "How come it never works when you're actually _looking_ —" 

 

"C-clockwork Koushi?" Hitoka asks before he can finish. She hopes it doesn't come off as rude. The anticipation of finally going home makes her blood race. 

 

He blinks owlishly at them, before a smile touches his lips. Hitoka can't believe they actually did it. They actually found him. They can go home. She can see Dinah again. And her mother. Oh god, her mother must be so worried— 

 

"I'm sorry. You have the wrong guy." 

 

Hitoka's heart falls to her feet. 

 

"O-oh..." 

 

Hitoka had thought she could finally end all these worldly questions plaguing her mind by just leaving them all in Wonderland. Now, when the opportunity to leave that has supposedly been just within reach suddenly torn from her, she isn't so sure what to do anymore. Do they go back and look for more clues on Clockwork? Or do they just... give up? 

 

_"Don't you want to be a hero, too?"_

 

The question echoes once more in her mind. It makes her heart clench. What does being a hero even entail? Knowing when to give up? Knowing when no hope is left? Or is it persevering despite the blood-drawing hurdles along the way? Is it finding bravery and courage when most would fall into despair? 

 

How is Hitoka supposed to be a hero when she doesn't possess any of that? What type of hero can she even be? 

 

"Hey, Koushi! Long time nyo see!" 

 

Kuro bounds over with a laughing Natsu on his shoulders. He grins wide and his bushy tail whips once.  His eyebrows waggle. 

 

"I see you finally convinced nature princess over there out on a date. Nice!" 

 

The pale man, who is definitely lying about not being Clockwork Koushi as evidenced by the cold sweat he breaks out in Hitoka can see despite him already being wet, still has a disarming smile on his face. How he isn't melted into a puddle under the heat of the accusing glares Kozume throws his way is a mystery to Hitoka. 

 

Clockwork Koushi bolts and Kozume dives for him. 

 

Hitoka fidgets with her hands, unsure if she should join the squabble of limbs on the floor. There are a lot of squawks and protests from Koushi ( "I'll never go back! You can't make me! You can take this vacation away from my cold, dead hands!") and quite a few cold declarations from Kozume ("I don't care. I want to go back home. And you need to do your job for that.") She could join the cheerleaders' side with Kuro and Natsu, but this _is_ her ticket home at stake.

 

Hitoka finally steels herself and, with purpose she hasn't previously been aware of, walks over and sits on Koushi's legs. It gives Kozume the opportunity to sit on Clockwork Koushi's torso and pins his arms down.

 

"Please," Hitoka begs. "W-we just want to go home." 

 

Koushi struggles some more, bucking and wriggling and doing everything to try to wrestle himself out from under them, but both Hitoka and Kozume stay strong. 

 

"Koushi." 

 

The light voice saying Clockwork's name halts his movements immediately, and there's a sudden rush of color in his face. 

 

"Y-yes, Kiyoko?" 

 

 _Even her name is pretty_ , thinks Hitoka, as Kiyoko finally sits up in her beach chair, her bare legs danglung off the side. She removes her sunglasses, only for there to be another pair of normal eyeglasses underneath, which gives Hitoka a lot of pause. Was she... trying to look cool or something? 

 

"It's time to get back to work." 

 

Hitoka doesn't care if it's an act or not. Kiyoko is definitely the definition of super cool in her books. 

 

Koushi groans and his body goes slack. Hitoka, hesitantly, stands up. Kozume follows her example a minute later, after glaring at Clockwork Koushi to make sure he doesn't try to run away. 

 

Koushi sits up, and crosses his legs. There's a pout on his features, and a droop to his shoulders. 

 

"Which one of you is a hero?" he whimpers. And it's that exact question that would have saved him earlier.

 

Hitoka stiffens, and Kozume doesn't say anything. Kuro cackles and Natsu tumbles off his shoulders with a squeak. 

 

Koushi's expression takes a one eighty and he grins. 

 

"I don't do favors for non-heroes! Better go slay a jabberwocky or behead a tyrant before you come back to ask me for anything!" 

 

Kozume makes a move towards Koushi, and Hitoka sees the angry punch she knew was there about to unleash. She grabs his arm without thinking and says quickly, "Kozume-kun, i-it's ok! We'll figure something out! We... " Hitoka searches for the right words. What would a hero say now? What would Hitoka, if she were in need of a hero, want to be said to her? 

 

She finds the words immediate with that thought. 

 

"We're going to go home. No matter what." 

 

Kozume blinks. He slowly removes his arm, and Hitoka is quick to return her hand. He fidgets a little before saying, "Ok." 

 

"I'm a hero!" 

 

All four adults turn to stare at the little mouse girl, who shakes her head rapidly to remove the green sand stuck in her hair. There's a bright fire in her eyes. 

 

Clockwork Koushi starts sweating again.

 

"I'm a red knight! I became a knight so I could save my family! That makes me a hero, right?" 

 

Hitoka's heart hurts. She wants to grab the little mouse girl and hug her tightly enough to erase the hardships she had to go through. What had Hitoka been doing at that age? Crying because some mean boy pulled her hair? How did little Natsu with the orange Mickey Mouse ears find enough drive, bravery, and courage to become a knight and save her family? 

 

Kuro lifts the little girl and spins her around, pulling her into a tight hug in the end as she squeaks in protest. There may or may not be tears in his eyes. 

 

"I'm so sorry I tried to eat you! W-will you ever forgive this big old scary cat?" he wails, and yes, those are definitely the beginning of waterworks on his cheeks. 

 

Natsu laughs. "You're not as scary as I thought you were! You're just a big softie!" 

 

Kuro starts sobbing into her shoulder. Natsu starts protesting about the— " _Ew!_ Don't leak on me!" 

 

Hitoka rubs her own eyes and takes this opportunity to glance at Clockwork Koushi. 

 

He seems resigned to the fact that his job is calling and that he has to go back to work no matter how much he doesn't want to. With a long sigh, he stands up and dusts the neon yellow sand off his swim trunks. 

 

"Fine. I'm  _going_ , ok? You can stop now." 

 

Kiyoko stands up and walks over to Koushi. She leans up on her toes and presses a kiss to Koushi's cheek. 

 

"I'll see you later." 

 

She disappears in a tornado of leaves, much to Hitoka's surprise. Clockwork Koushi turns red, from his forehead all the way down to his toes. 

 

Kuro continues to sob. Kozume rolls his eyes, but Hitoka thinks this is the first time she sees something happy in his expression. 

 

Which reminds her of the hand that held hers while she screamed in the bus cat.

 

She walks over to him, and holds a hand over her mouth so she can whisper. 

 

"Kozume-kun," she waits until he turns to her before continuing, "Thank you. F-for holding my hand. When we were in the cat bus. It really helped." 

 

Kozume immediately looks away from her, a pink blush on his cheeks. 

 

"It was nothing." 

 

Hitoka smiles warmly. 

 

"Ok, so I'm leaving," Clockwork Koushi begins. They both turn to him. "Time will start running again when I get back. You two should probably find a book if you want to go back. And also... maybe deal with that?" 

 

Koushi points towards the hot mess of a six foot catman who is still crying. Natsu is really starting to look rather disgruntled.

 

"So... bye, I guess?" 

 

Hitoka waves as Clockwork Koushi walks back into the groove of palms trees at the end of beach and begins weaving through the trees. 

 

She drops her hand, and pivots back toward Kozume with a great need to comment on this whole journey. 

 

"Well," she weaves a stray hair back behind her ear, "There were, um, a lot of things I don't, um, want to experience again. B-but, um, there were also things that were... really fun." 

 

And again, almost immediately, all three times she's been asked the plaguing question blend together and melt into one foreboding _Don’t you want to be hero?'_

 

The voice inside her head that asks the question this time sounds like suspiciously like her own. 

 

Kozume stares at his feet. A tiny smile stretches his mouth. 

 

"Maybe—" 

 

A pirate swings down and sweeps Kozume off his feet before he can finish his sentence. 

 


	6. Stare too long into the abyss, and it will write an angst fic

 

Last time Kenma had checked, they had fallen in _Wonderland_ and certainly not _Neverland_. 

 

He's been tied to a mast by some guy with a greater apology to sentence ratio than the amount of arranged marriage fics on AO3 (not that Kenma would know anything about them. It's not like he reads them in his spare time or anything. He's not that good in English after all.) He's grateful that they haven't tied him standing up, even if the wooden boards aren't the most comfortable to sit on, but this situation is so immensely stupid even Kenma is starting to look for positives. 

 

Nonconsensual bondage play aside, these pirates have been stage whispering a plan for ten minutes now. Kenma really wishes they had had this conversation _before_ they had kidnapped him. Yachi and him could have been on their merry way and maybe even home by then. But _no_ , he's stuck playing damsel in distress for dumb pirates. 

 

"I-I don't think we're at the right p-place—" begins the one who had tied Kenma up. He gets cut off by the guy with white hair like a boulder cut into something resembling a haircut.

 

"Forget that, Himekawa! We just pulled a fast one on all the red bastards! This is gonna go down as the best declaration of war in history!" 

 

A man with a shaven head and a grin suspiciously like the Red Queen's laughs boisterously. "Bwahaha! Saeko's gonna eat a brick when she sees me! This'll teach her for marrying me off!" 

 

Oh great. The Red Queen's brother is staging a coupe d'etat. Kenma begins thumping his head against the mast. No wonder they're uniforms seemed suspiciously un-piratey and the result of a white out spill. This day just keeps getting better and better.

 

Another guy, with a redhead to rival Natsu's looking just about as done as Kenma, says weakly, "...War. Yay." 

 

"Kuguri! Where's your fire, man?!" yells the Red Queen's brother in protest.

 

"It's burning... somewhere." 

 

"Forget Kuguri. We're going down as the greatest tyrants ever!" Exclaims Boulder boy with two fist bumps to the air. Kenma can't handle the all that excitable idiot willpower without cringing. He thumps his head harder.

 

Someone save him. 

 

"I think your plan for invading will have to wait, boys," come an authoritative voice. Kenma flickers his gaze to and finds the source to be a girl shorter than even Yachi. Her bushy auburn twintails contrast against her white uniform and there's a look of bitter disdain in her chocolate eyes. 

 

"They have Alice."

 

Boulder Boy and the Queen's Brother immediately conjoin to the edge of the ship and lean dangerously over the railing. 

 

"Huuunnh?" drawls Boulder Boy, just as The Red Queen's Brother starts cursing like the sailor he's supposed to be. " _HUUUUUUUUUHHH_?!"

 

"I can't go to jail," frets the one called Himekawa, hands on his face, "W-what do they even do in jail? Wait— _Please don't tell me it's a_ red _jail._ " 

 

"It's a red jail," offers Kuguri unhelpfully. Himekawa is close to tears. 

 

"Wait!" The Queen's Brother grabs Himekawa and drags his reluctant body over to the port. "Are you sure she's Alice? Maybe she's just another blonde with a sword. She's tiny, too. We could totally take her— _ow_!" 

 

"Being short doesn't make you incompetent, you asshole!" 

 

Boulder Boy and The Red Queen's brother start tussling. Himekawa is on the floor praying. Kuguri looks to the only girl and asks, "Can we just go home?" 

 

The girl with the bushy twin tails huffs out a long and annoyed sigh. 

 

"We don't have any other choice, do we?" 

 

"What—no, _screw_ Alice!" The Red Queen's brother pushes Boulder Boy's face away with his hand. They're both now sporting discolored bruises on their faces. 

 

Kenma can't believe these people thought they were going to invade a kingdom. 

 

"We can still take them! Who cares if Alice is—" 

 

" _I_  care,” snaps the girl, and the Red Queen’s brother immediately backtracks.  “I'm not risking  _my_  ship for  _your_  selfish cause." She turns to Kuguri. "We're going home. Give the kid back." 

 

And that's how Kenma gets thrown overboard off a floating ship. 

 

He hits the purple sand and his breath rushes out of him. He's going to have so many bruises from this. 

 

"Kozume-kun! Oh my god, y-you're _ok_!" 

 

Yachi runs over to him as he sits up with a freaking golden sword in her hands. The tears in her eyes don't match the fierce image the sword portrays at all. Nor does Yachi's overall... softness.

 

"I-I was so worried. Those p-pirates just came and kidnapped you and I didn't know what to do, and oh god, what if they had _killed_ you? Are you ok? Did they hurt you?" How she manages to check him over with her wet eyes is beyond him. 

 

"I-I'm so glad you're ok," she croaks, her knees meeting the purple sand where she carefully places the golden sword next to her before she attempts to catch the tears falling from her cheeks. 

 

And it's at this moment Kenma realizes—rather belatedly—that Yachi Hitoka,  _Yachi Hitoka_ , had just pulled a sword on five trained pirates to save him. 

 

He's sort of... touched. 

 

_But where the hell did she get a sword from?_

 

"Wow, you're still alive!" Kuro, back to the annoying fluffy black cat with the ridiculous tuft between his ears, bulldozes Kenma's chest, a triumphant whoop escaping his mouth. 

 

Natsu comes running over as well, a look of awe on her face, her eyes glued to the golden sword at Yachi's feet.

 

Kuro starts snickering at Kenma's annoyed look. 

 

"Man, you should have seen the looks on their faces when little Yachi here pulled out the vorpal sword.  _Pure_  gold." 

 

His loud cackles are snuffed out by Kenma's exclamation of "Vorpal  _what_?" 

 

"It was—! The best! Most amazing! Most ultimate! Most awesome thing in the whole world!" Little Natsu looks like she’s just about to build a shrine in commemoration of this ‘best, most amazing, most ultimate, most awesome’ moment.

 

"I-I'm sorry," is the only blubbery comment Yachi can manage.

 

Somehow though, it makes sense. No matter the blonde was a petrified Yachi Hitoka, and the sword was in her inexperienced hands. To Wonderlandians, blonde plus sword equals Alice.

 

Yachi Hitoka had just accidentally pulled the casus belli right from the White Kingdom's hands. She had just stopped a war from breaking out. Because she was blonde. And had a sword. 

 

Kenma's shoulders shake. 

 

"K...Kozume-kun?" Her voice is on the hoarse side from her sobs, and that just makes the gooey feeling building up in his chest so much harder to repress. Yachi Hitoka, who had just cried because she was worried about him, had just stopped a war. Because she was blonde. And she had a sword. 

 

Kenma can't help it. He bursts out laughing. 

 

-***-

 

There's a light, airy feeling in his chest. 

 

Kenma isn't sure if it's from his laughing fit, or from the fact that they can finally go home. It might be a little of both, a mix of two different releases to the tensions that had been running high in his mind. Not having to worry about more days off his life is a welcome relief, and getting to finally break away from the mad Wonderlandians is more than enough to create a happy homecoming. 

 

Possibly the only con to the escape is the fact he still has to get to a lecture after this. And deal with the double trouble of a three hour physics lab and oblivious Tora. 

 

Ok, the gooey feeling in his chest has finally decreased. Kenma was starting to get worried. 

 

They're hitching another ride with Nekomata, this time back to the castle so they can find a book to leave by. Natsu and Kuro have each taken a seat somewhere in front of the bus cat, so only he and Yachi remain in the back. 

 

He still hasn't asked her about the sword, nor is he really sure he wants to. It's a can of worm he doesn't think needs to be opened if they're leaving, so he thinks he'll just leave it with all the other wacky thoughts you get from taking a swing in Wonderland. 

 

Although, he wouldn't mind if Yachi and him still talked after this. 

 

"Kozume-kun." And that. He'd almost forgotten about that one. He really would like to leave that mouthful of 'respect' in Wonderland, too. 

 

Kenma rubs his shoes together. 

 

"Kenma." 

 

The question mark in her features is so obvious.

 

He's glad his shoes don't squeak when they brush even more. 

 

"You can call me Kenma." 

 

"I-I couldn't!" 

 

He blinks. This isn't something he's ever been met with protest before. He isn’t sure how to deal with this.

 

"We're the same age?" he tries.

 

_Why did that come out like a question?_

 

"O-oh."  _It worked?_

 

He's just a slightly bit bitter, however, since he is, in fact, a year older than her, and yet she doesn't seem to have noticed.

 

Yachi ponders for a moment before she says hesitantly, "Kenma... kun?" 

 

He sighs. It seems like that's the best he'll get at the moment. 

 

"Yeah?" 

 

"Do you think..." She clasps her fingers together in her lap. "Do you think I could be a hero?" 

 

Not what he was expecting at all. Granted, maybe all those hero statements had gotten to her. Or maybe even it was Natsu's story. He's never really been gung-ho about being one in real life, either. Heroic acts of justice in video games are enough of a tickle to his fancy. 

 

He's not sure what to say, but he doesn't want to say nothing, either. Yachi is... she deserves a good answer. He wishes she'd asked Kuro or even Natsu. They would have been able to provide an answer worthy of a shounen manga protagonist. 

 

He wishes she wasn't stuck with some awkward Villager B like him who doesn't even have any special or rare items to offer. 

 

Yet... here they are. She's asked him. She didn't ask Kuro, or Natsu. She hadn't waited to ask Shiro or Lady Mika. She hadn't even questioned the people who has asked her the question. She'd asked  _him_. 

 

He has to do his best. 

 

"You... you saved me," he begins. She immediately eyes him boggled eyed. He quickly continues, stammering down the embarrassment in his cheeks, "With the pirates. You saved me so... " He risks meeting her wide eyes, "...you're already a hero." 

 

He instantly stares back ahead. Kuro meets his gaze with an eyebrow wiggle game so fierce and a grin so wide Kenma immediately wants to take a rake to his face. And then his own face because _fuck_ , he wants to die in a pool of his own idiotic shame. 

 

Despite all that, he can feel the warmth of Yachi's smile to his left without even seeing. He might not have messed this up, after all. Well, as well as any NPC with good writing can do, that is. 

 

"Thank you, Kenma-kun." 

 

-***-

 

They get dropped out again in the palace grounds and Nekomata vanishes with another hearty snicker. 

 

Shiro and Kanoka are immediately upon them, seemingly from thin air. 

 

"The heroes are back," Shiro sings with a mad grin, just as Kanoka swoops up Natsu in a hug.

 

"Y-you're ok! You did it! You've... officially b-become... a knight..." Kanoka is sobbing in Natsu's shoulder before she can finish the sentiment. Natsu laughs. 

 

Kuro jumps from Kenma's shoulder to Shiro's and rubs his head affectionately against her face. Her pride with their achievement is great enough that she returns the gesture with a fond pet. 

 

Kuro puffs up instantly. Shiro's tenderness doesn't last long as she throws him off her shoulder by the scruff of his neck and makes a beeline for Kenma. 

 

"Guess what you are," she asks, a twinkle in her crimson eyes. 

 

Kenma sighs. He isn't the fondest of her when she gets like this. He really just wants to find a book and go home, but he supposes he can let this one slide for once. 

 

"What am I?" 

 

She grins impossibly wider. " _Late_  for teatime. My lady is furious." 

 

Kenma huffs again, and it is not one bit exasperated. 

 

-***-

 

This time, Shiro takes the cupcake straight to the face without moving an inch. 

 

Kenma isn't sure who's more surprised. Lady Mika, with her jaw slack in a gesture she'd surely dub unladylike and her arm still out from throwing the damned pastry, or Yachi, with an expression that cannot fathom how Shiro, captain of the red guard, could not dodge a cupcake. 

 

Shiro removes the cupcake and licks off the access. 

 

"My lady, forgive my tardiness, I was hoping to borrow a book to allow our heroes safe passage home." 

 

It's another moment before Lady Mika composes herself. The skirt of her crimson dress billows out as she pivots towards the bookshelf to the right of what Kenma assumes is her study. With a manicured hand, she loosens a book from the row upon row of leather bound novels organized on the shelf and walks over to place it in Shiro's waiting hand. 

 

She then turns to them. Kenma has to avert his eyes away from her searching gaze. 

 

"I suppose you've done what was required of you with optimal results. I congratulate your achievements." 

 

"Such high praise from the lady herself,” Shiro mocks after an exaggerated gasp. “Who are you and what have you done with the _true_ Lady Mika?" 

 

Lady Mika yanks the book from Shiro's grasp and thwacks her on the head with it. Shiro's wide smirk becomes the slightest bit strained. Lady Mika returns the book with a final look at them. 

 

"I suppose a goodbye is in order. Farewell, good heroes. Know that the deed you have done will not go unsung." 

 

And with that, Lady Mika leaves the room. 

 

Shiro hands the book to Yachi. Kenma becomes uncomfortably aware he should probably say something along the lines of a goodbye, but he's used all his limited powers with words on Yachi, and it's not like he's not going to come back here eventually. 

 

He's got to pass his Creative Writing course somehow. 

 

"Well, this is a farewell after all. I suppose a kiss is in order." 

 

Shiro grabs Yachi's hand before she can even blink and places a kiss on her knuckles. Her belated _eep_ comes after Shiro snatches his own hand and kisses it too. He doesn't even get the chance to yank it away before she dashing out the room with a "See you soon, my heroes!" over her shoulder. 

 

It's a moment before Hitoka peeks at him with a face a little too pink. 

 

"Um... how do we...?" She gestures lamely to the book between her grasp. 

 

"Oh, uh..." Hesitantly, Kenma takes the book. He places it on the floor a little ways in front of them and backs away. He meets Yachi's confused eyes head on. 

 

"Think 'I want to jump' and then... jump." 

 

Yachi nods hesitantly, and Kenma suddenly remembered the ten fainting spells she'd had on the way here. He really doesn't feel like jumping this alone with an unconscious person, so he says, "You can hold my hand. If you want." 

 

Yachi instantly blushes. Yet, a minute later, she slowly places her hand in his. 

 

Kenma isn't sure how tight or loose to hold it. So he leaves it to Yachi as he thinks,  _I want to jump_. 

 

Immediately, a giant, endless black hole opens up in the ground. He feels Yachi's grip strength suddenly increase by ten. 

 

It's the first time Kenma has jumped with anyone. He usually just goes for it. Maybe he should do that here too, just jump and pull Yachi along. But he isn't sure how well that will go with her. 

 

Before he can think, he asks, "Are you ready?" 

 

She doesn't respond at first, her eyes glued fearfully to the gaping black hole in the floor. The phrase 'gaze too long into the abyss, and the abyss will gaze back into you' jumps to the forefront of his mind. He regrets not just going for it, and letting the tension build up, making it even harder for her. 

 

However, the grip in his hand stays tight, and through the fearfulness there's steel he isn't sure he recognizes. 

 

"I'm ready." 

 

Kenma doesn't dally a moment longer. He jumps, and they're both falling. 

 

If only it had stayed that way. 

 

They're fine the first few minutes into the fall. It's a simple matter getting used to the weightless of the drop again, and Yachi doesn't even faint. However, the longer they fall, the more Yachi seems to lag. Further and further down, Kenma feels like something is pulling Yachi back up with the only thing keeping her from flying back into Wonderland is Kenma's tight grip on her hand. 

 

It gets progressively harder and harder to keep her falling with him. He tries to wrap his other hand around her wrist but keeps failing. Every time he feels his fingers slipping, his heartbeat thumps rapidly in his ears. 

 

They have to be halfway through the fall when they stop completely. 

 

It's very hard to describe what it's like being stretched taut between two different worlds with the life of another person in his hands. His heart is banging crazy wars drums everywhere in his body, and he wills his mind to find a solution to this problem despite the fear creeping in like the darkness around him. 

 

"Don't worry," he finds himself saying. If it's for him, or for Yachi, he isn't sure. "I'll figure something out." 

 

He manages to wrap his other hand around her wrist before pulling with all his might, trying to tear her away from whatever is keeping her back. He pulls and yanks and and jerks and tugs and strains his entire body attempting to tear her free. 

 

After a while, he feels like he'll have an easier time wrenching her arm out than jerking her out of whatever grips her back in Wonderland. 

 

He slacks just the tiniest bit, and one of his hands slips. His heart leaps into his throat and pounds against him as he clutches the one hand he has in Yachi's with all his might. 

 

"K...Kenma-kun." Her voice sounds foreign to him as he looks around madly for anything that could rectify the situation. 

 

There's nothing but the darkness of the abyss that holds them. 

 

"It's ok... It's ok, Kenma-kun, you... you can let go." 

 

His gaze snaps back to her. " _What?_ " And it's then he feels like he's seeing a completely different person from the one who had entered Wonderland. When she'd fallen in, she'd been crying and broken and sad. She'd been nervous and weak and lost. She'd been Yachi Hitoka, one of his classmates that scared easily. 

 

Now she's... she's strong. There's something like resignation in her eyes. The resignation of someone who has predicted the inevitably of a befalling and accepted it. A hero's resignation. 

 

Yachi Hitoka who had entered Wonderland like the weak cut from the herd, somehow, without him noticing, had become strong, resigned, acceptant, a hero, and his friend. 

 

Kenma is not letting his friend go. 

 

"I can't let you go," he answers immediately. Words are falling from his lips without him even thinking on them. "Time works differently in Wonderland. It could be months—no, _years_ there and you'd still have a lecture to go to back in the real world. I... I can't let you go. I won't let you go." 

 

Yachi smiles at him. The tears spilling at her cheeks roll off and spring upwards instead of down. 

 

"It's ok." 

 

Her fingers go slack in his. Kenma struggles to squeeze her hand single-handedly. 

 

"No! It's not ok! You'll get old! You could  _die_  over there and it wouldn't mean anything in real time!" She's slipping from his grasp. Kenma doesn't know what else to say to keep her from sacrificing herself for him. He has to say something. He can't let her do this. 

 

"You're not a hero," he lies. And he holds her startled gaze desperately. "You're... stupid. You're an idiot! This isn't what—this isn't what a hero does! Heroes save the day with no casualties. Heroes don't sacrifice themselves for other people. Heroes know when to give up. Heroes don't..."

 

He takes an unsteady breath. 

 

"Heroes don't let their friends down." 

 

There's a long silence that falls over them. It mingles with the darkness and the precarious equilibrium they're caught in. Kenma is sick and tired of all this heartache. He just wants to go home, and not have to worry about accidentally leaving Yachi in Wonderland for years that he'll only know a moment of. 

 

He never asked for this. Nor did he ever ask for the friend he found in Yachi. 

 

"Thank you, Kenma-kun," she says suddenly, and it's so resigned Kenma knows it's this moment that's going to change everything. 

 

"Thank you for giving me the chance to be a hero." 

 

She yanks her hand away, and they both fall in completely opposite directions. 

 


	7. Well, at least I checked 'romance a jabberwocky' off the bucket list? That has to count for something, right?

 

Yachi Hitoka falls back into Wonderland, and no one questions it. 

 

The first few days she spends in Wonderland without Kenma are dictated by a sort of chaotic silence. She has no way of telling how much time has passed in the real world, or if any has passed at all, and despite the nature of her return to Wonderland, she still finds herself gazing to the sky each day for a sign of a falling boy who has come back for her. 

 

A month passes just like this, and it's at the end of it when she decides to make a life for herself in Wonderland. 

 

At first, she isn't sure where to start. She takes up a job as a scullery maid at Shiro's joking suggestion, and is given a uniform more extravagant than any of her formal clothes back home. She washes dishes and sweeps the floors, and yet once more, she finds herself fingering the golden pen she always keeps in her pocket, hoping for something she can't bring herself to say out loud. 

 

Each time she wakes up in the morning and makes a silent declaration to herself, the _I want to be a hero_  is drowned out by  _heroes don't let their friends down_. 

 

A year into her mornings of a scullery maid she remembers,  _you're already a hero_. 

 

So, instead of living the day out as a scullery maid, she walks up to Shiro and Kanoka and stammers, "I-I would like to be a knight, p-please!" 

 

They're both more than willing to teach her.

 

It's hard. It's painfully difficult. Her bruises her nursing bruises. There's a constant ache in every one of her muscles. She can hear Shiro's  _faster, harder, stronger_  even when the captain isn't there, and there are times when a sudden noise will make her spin around and parry with her golden sword with Kanoka's  _there's an enemy behind you! What do you do_? ringing in her ears. 

 

There are days where she wakes up so weak she feels like she hasn't slept at all. How she manages to get out of bed with her body screaming at her to take a break is a miracle. 

 

Yet when she slices a flying cupcake cleanly through without any frosting or crumbs sticking to her sword, she feels all the pains and aches and bruises are worth it. 

 

She takes on quests after that. Helping out civilians, arresting rouges, and fighting off monsters. She laughs to herself when she remembers how a few years ago she was just a regular college student, worrying about passing and crying over bad grades. She doesn't regret those days, or feel childish about her earlier worries. However, she feels now that she could take a complete blaring F with a smile on her face, because no matter what, she had worked for that, and hard work is never a waste. 

 

Still, there are days were  a warm cup of tea sits between her hands, and she peers up at the blue sky. She wonders how many days have passed in the real world. If her mother is sick with worry over her, or if she still doesn't even know Hitoka is gone. Hitoka also worries for Dinah her cat. She hopes someone will hear her hungry meows and investigate, and give her the warm home she deserves. Her beautiful cat had helped through many rough times, and she deserves someone who will care for her and love her unconditionally. 

 

She is weaving through an abandoned broken down castle once when she hears a rumbling roar. 

 

Her heartbeat quickens, but Hitoka doesn't shake. There had been a complaint from a patron about strange nightly sounds that had been disturbing the common folk and Hitoka has been tasked to investigate. The lantern in her hand lights the dark corridor and casts strange shadows upon the broken walls around her. 

 

She's not afraid, but she really hopes this isn't something too big. She's alone in here, and that lowers her odds of success a little too low for her jumpy nerves. The dark hallway opens up at the end, and another loud roar alerts Hitoka how close she is to the source. 

 

With a deep breathe, she walks towards the end of the rubble-scattered hallway, and, at the sight of an open, hollow clearing, she throws the lantern and watches the soaring light illuminate the dark cavern. 

 

It's a jabberwocky. 

 

She has seen the pictures. She has heard the horror tales. She knows all the gritty and nitty details of personal encounters. But nothing prepares her for the sheer magnificence of its creation. 

 

The light of her lantern had danced between all the dark green scales encompassing the entirety of the beast. Its long, snake-like neck bends awkwardly over its body. The sharp, twisting horns jetting out of its head and the sharper sword-like claws protruding from its fingers are as long as Hitoka. Its tail is so long it nearly wraps around its body and still overlaps. The fangs sticking out of its maw promise a painful death to all those who dare to disturb it. 

 

And to top off the entire terrifying image, the jabberwocky is... crying. 

 

At first, Hitoka had thought her mind was playing tricks on her. Hallucinations are not a foreign occurrence in Wonderland, and Hitoka has been taught how to get out of them quickly and efficiently. 

 

But when all the techniques she has learned fail to break any sort of magic playing around with her sense, and the jabberwocky proves to really, truly, be sobbing, Hitoka is more than a little... lost. 

 

"W...what do you want?!" Comes the petrified, sob ridden voice deep within the jabberwocky's throat. Hitoka honestly feels like she has intruded on something private. She's down for beating up monsters and punishing rouges, but stumbling upon a crying dragon immediately pushes all her Oh My God I Just Did Something Very Embarrassing button all the way. 

 

"U-um..." She's never dealt with this before. Usually, when her friends are upset, Hitoka cries enough for the both of them in response. And when _she's_ upset, all she needs are a few nice and encouraging words, and maybe a hug, to get over it. But Crying Jabberwocky doesn't seem to have anyone at their side. Which makes the dark abandoned castle location make a lot more sense. Hitoka gives the slightest thought to all the doubts of this being a trick, but... it's _crying_. Hitoka isn't about to put down a friendless, sobbing dragon. 

 

"Are you... ok?" 

 

The jabberwocky sniffs. It's a truly terrifying sound. 

 

"N-not really..." 

 

Hitoka hesitates. "Do you.... would you like to talk about it?" Which comes out sounding more of an incredulous question Hitoka is asking herself and less of an inquiry for the upset dragon.

 

It's silent, and the darkness casting shadows over the dragon remind Hitoka of the terrifying turn this could take at any moment. 

 

At a hesitant, "Y-yes..." Hitoka takes a moment to scan the broken wall, and notes all the footholds she can use to maneuver down. Ignoring the petrified  _this is a terrible idea!_  echoing in her mind. Hitoka calls out, "I'm coming down, ok?" before she begins her trek down the broken wall. 

 

Once her boots hit solid ground, she turns quickly to the jabberwocky, not one to leave her back open to a dragon. 

 

It's gone. 

 

She panics, turning her head right and left rapidly, looking for the beast. The sound of feet against rubble snaps her head back forward, and she gapes. 

 

There's a boy with a tattered, dirty cloth around himself. His matted, dark green hair whips wildly around two willowing horns protruding from his skull. Angel kisses dance on his cheeks, and the wet, doe eyes are hesitant. At the end of the cloth, a thick scaly emerald tail pokes out, and drags along the floor. It's the same green of the jabberwocky's scales and Hitoka belatedly realizes that this  _is_  the jabberwocky. 

 

It's late because her mind had been too busy screaming  _oh no, he's cute!_

 

"I-I thought it would be easier to talk like this," he says, in a voice progressively less dragon-y and way more human. 

 

Hitoka is so down with it it's scary. 

 

"Y-yes! It is! Why... why don't we sit down?" 

 

Yes, because boulders and rocks and broke bits of castle make for great seating choices. 

 

Still, the boy plumps down cross legged on the floor, his scaly tail lassoed halfway around him. Hitoka averts her gaze away from the bare chest that had been exposed with the movements, and hesitantly, copies the gesture. 

 

The silence is painful. Hitoka is going to implode. 

 

"Um..." The boy jumps at her voice, and his surprised wide eyes are illegally adorable. Hitoka swallows, trying to wet her dry throat. "What... what happened?" 

 

"Oh! Um..." Instantly, he's downtrodden again. Hitoka will not hesitate to go on crusades to wipe the frown off his face. "It's... It's my friend. He... Something happened with his brother and he... He hasn't been the same since and I... I-I don't know what to do about it..." 

 

Hitoka tries to stammer the part of her that is more surprised about the fact the jabberwocky has friends than the actual problem. She thinks for a moment, and really, it's such a nostalgic sort of thing to be thrown back into what was one her biggest worries when she was just a regular college student. The solution comes as easy as a sword swing is to her these days, and she wishes she could go back to her five year old self and tell her not to worry about people pulling her hair because she was going to grow up to be one of the strongest knights Wonderland has ever known. 

 

"Stick by his side," she says, and she her smile is the remembrance of more than one fond memory. "And when he needs you, you'll be right there for him!" 

 

The dragon boy doesn't comment on her advice, and his downtrodden expression remains. However, when realizes that's all Hitoka’s advice is, he looks up with blinking surprise. 

 

"That's it?" Hitoka immediately wants to back up, and say a million more things to back up her statement. But the words don't come to her because that _is_ it. That has always been it. And that has always been enough. For her at least. What else can she add that will help a _dragon_ anyway? She isn't sure. 

 

The dragon boy misunderstands her expression completely. 

 

"I-I mean, that's good advice! Really great advice! But... is it really enough..?" 

 

"Yes!" Hitoka exclaims. It is. Even when they hadn't been friends, having someone at her side when she had fallen in an alternative universe had helped miraculously. And after that even more.

 

Kenma had called her a hero once. And she still holds those words dear like nothing else she has ever known. 

 

"It's more than enough." 

 

The dragon boy seems to mull over her words again. He doesn't appear to have found some worldly truth from them, but he's brighter than he was when she'd first walked in. 

 

It's a better look on him, really. 

 

 _Why am I like this! I've barely known him for two seconds! I don't even know his name for pete's sake!_

 

"Thank you. For your advice! And for listening! I haven't... talked to someone like this before in a long time." 

 

Hitoka imagines jabberwocky don't make very good first impressions. She had sort of gone in here on a mission to maybe kill him after all. She's just glad her newfound weakness of Inappropriate Crushes On Mythical Creatures didn't happen with someone who might have been an actual threat. She's very, very,  _very_  glad about that. 

 

"Don't mention it!" Hitoka tugs a strand of hair behind her ear before pushing off the ground. She needs to report back and make some excuse about fallen rubble or something to calm the townsfolk. She doesn't want to leave. But she can't find any excuse for her to stay longer.

 

"I'll see you later?" she tries, and wishes he would ask her to stay. He nods and gives the tiniest smile. Hitoka would do anything to stay more. 

 

Reluctantly, she makes her way back to the pile of rubble. She needs to scale it and get back up into the hallway. Her mind goes  _Mission Accomplished. Report back immediately_ , but her heart says  _are you really going to leave the cute boy behind?_

 

She pivots on her heel and marches back. The dragon boy seems surprised, but there is something bright and dare she say,  _hopeful_  in his expression.

 

"W-would you like, if, um, I'd really like it if we could, uh, I-I was wondering if you, you and I could... go out... sometime...." 

 

She implodes. 

 

" _Will you go on a date with me?!_ "

 

The dragon boy turns a flattering pink. Hitoka even thinks the scales on his green tail go darker with the full body blush he has going on. 

 

Hitoka stores the image away into her heart and locks it with enough fortification to last a decade. 

 

She's about to backtrack like mad, and just run away with apologizes over her shoulder for being so forward, when he says meekly, "Ok." 

 

And that's how Hitoka goes down as the first person in history to romance a jabberwocky. 

 

-***- 

 

All their dates go horribly wrong. Hitoka loves them.

 

Everyone and their grandmother's estranged lover are always spying on them. It's a combination of both their interest in her as an esteemed knight of the Red Kingdom, and the fact that she's  _dating a jabberwocky_. 

 

Hitoka sometimes thinks the gossip will never end. Yet, at the same time, she doesn't really mind all that much. She's dating a cute boy, they have fun together, they work, and they're happy about it. It's good. Her life is good. She has a good job, a good head on her shoulders, good friends,  _a boyfriend_ , and she's happy. 

 

She misses her mother to the moon and back. She daydreams about a meeting between her and all the new people she's met in her life. Tadashi would be terrified of her. Lady Mika and her would get along like a house on fire. Shiro would bicker with her until both their hairs turned gray. Her mother would find a way to embarrass Kuro enough for his fur to somehow turn red. She'd  _hate_  the Miya Twins. She'd drink with Queen Saeko until they both were under the table. 

 

She'd be hypocritical of Kenma at first, but they'd slowly warm up to each other. 

 

Hitoka misses so much it sometimes hurts just to think about it.

 

She searches the sky once more for two toned hair and golden eyes. 

 

 _Where are you, Kenma-kun?_

 

-***-

 

Decades have passed since she had let go of Kenma's hand. 

 

Hitoka doesn't even get the luxury of growing old with her friends and loved ones. Time works differently for those born in Wonderland. They look the same as always while her bones shrink and her muscles grow weaker. Her skin goes thin and she gains weight. Her hair goes whiter than ever before. 

 

She has to  _retire_. She wants to laugh. Who would have thought Yachi Hitoka would ever reach the age of retirement? Granted, she _is_ a knight, so that age is lower to begin with. But imagine, Yachi Hitoka, who had never thought she would age past twenty without dying in some horrible accident, reaching the retiring age. 

 

She notices how her friends and Tadashi begin to treat her a bit differently. It makes her sad, but it is to be expected. There aren't that many old people in Wonderland, let alone someone who has aged as much as she has in the past years. Shiro is less snarky. Kanoka is even more gentle. Natsu smiles more warmly despite the worry in her little eyes. Kuro doesn't perch on her shoulders as much. 

 

And Tadashi, her sweet dragon, he stays by her side. He seems scared, terrified of the inevitably of Yachi Hitoka growing old, but he is also ready. He's nothing like the weeping dragon he had been in the cave. He is strong and confident and joking and ready and Hitoka loves him even more for that. 

 

It's when Hitoka is laying in her bed, reading a book in her wrinkly hands, does one of her final wishes come true. 

 

Kozume Kenma makes reappears in her life. 

 

She smiles as tears drip from his eyes. 

 

"It's been one minute. It's only been _one_ _minute_.” He covers his face as Hitoka gingerly moves her legs.

 

"I  _told_  you," he croaks. The tears streaks are visible through the gaps in his fingers. His hair whips wildly as he snaps at her. "I _told_ you this would happen! You... you _idiot_! Stupid! Stupid, stubborn,  _idiot_!" 

 

She wraps her arms around his shoulders as he racks with more sobs, the repeating mantra of ‘ _idiot_ ’ under his breath. Despite her weaker strength, she holds him tight and smiles into his hair.

 

"Thank you for coming back, Kenma-kun," she whispers, and it does nothing to settle him.

 

At 63, Yachi Hitoka makes a boy cry for the first time. 

 

Her mother would be ecstatic. 

 

 


	8. I refuse to be the main character, after all

 

Kozume Kenma hasn't jumped in over a year. 

 

He failed Creative Writing, by the way. His overall grades have dropped. He has lost weight. He has completed more video games than he can count and then some. He doesn't talk much these days. His professors have started asking him about his personal life. His friends have no idea what's wrong, and even his family are stumped. 

 

In short, his life has taken a sharp left onto Generally Shitty Lane. 

 

He's not happy about it. 

 

There is no guide on the Internet on How To Cope With Making Your Friend Wait Forty Five Years For You: Inter-Dimensional Edition. There is no how-to for dummies on Dealing With A Mistake That Lasted One Minute On Your Part And A Lifetime For Your Friend. There is really nothing Kenma can even try to do about since he is the first person in the entire universe who has ever made this mistake. 

 

He hates her, just a little, for the seed of regret she planted in him when she had let go of his hand. It has since flowered and bloomed; grown until it has reached every part of his mind and body. It's terrible. Living with that chaotic tree inside of him. 

 

He doesn't care sometimes. Hitoka is now an old woman in Wonderland, and a lost person in this world. Whatever. It's not like he can do anything about it. Those days of nothing are his better ones. He would rather live with that emptiness on the matter than an entire World Tree of possibilities. 

 

He doesn't cry about ever. He's not a crier. That one time had been a freak occurrence, and it made him feel even more horrible afterwards. So he doesn't do it again. He doesn't cry, doesn't scream, doesn't let out anything at all. It's better this way. Because this way he can pretend it never happened. 

 

Though, the fact remains there's a reason he's retaking Creative Writing, and he can't believe any lie he tries to trick himself with. 

 

He doesn't care. He doesn't care at all. He hates Yachi Hitoka. He hates that she made him fall into Wonderland. He hates that she got him thrown in jail. He hates that he was forced to play tennis because of her. He hates that he got abducted by pirates because of the situation she had put him in. He hates that she let go of his hand. 

 

And most of all, he hates that in the short period of time they had known each other, she had become his friend. 

 

And so, because Kenma  _hates_  her, he will forget about her. 

 

Sometimes, it's easy. Sometimes, it's hard. 

 

Right now, he feels like he's almost forgotten her. He forgets about her stuttering nerves. He forgets about her existential crises. He forgets about her warm smiles. He forgets about her golden sword. He forgets about her hand around his. And he forgets Yachi Hitoka. 

 

He's almost there. Just one more push and he'll rid himself of her. He'll light a fire to the tree invading his every thought, and watch it burn. He'll forget everything about her as the ashes are blown away. 

 

He's stuck preparing his physics lab report outside, not being much of a fan of the library anymore. (Physics Lab 2, of course. Yeah, Kenma was shocked there was a version two of that hell, too).

There's a bit too much wind, though, and when Kenma lifts his laboratory manual to squint at the formulas, a gust of wind rushes past and the manual slaps against his face. 

 

He removes the stupid book and puts it down on the rock next to him. Maybe choosing the garden by Science wasn't the best decision to write a report, either. He could always walk to IT, but it's a bit too far away to his liking. 

 

Kenma sighs and picks up the manual again.

 

"Oi, Kenma!" 

 

He doesn't pay attention at first. Not because he has a habit of ignoring people who call his name (ok, maybe a little), but because that voice sounds suspiciously like Tora's, and Kenma is sure he has class right now (he does  _not_  have all his friends' breaks memorized, no matter what Tora wants to believe). He writes it off as a Lack Of Coffee hallucination, and writes down another formula he thinks may or may not be important to supporting his theory. It's not like he even knows what his theory is about after all. 

 

Two sneakers appear in his vision, and Kenma's eyes dart to look at the face of the person who really  _is_  Tora. It gives him more than a little pause because that means Tora  _skipped_  class, and Tora  _never_  skips class. 

 

"I need to talk to you!" he exclaims roughly, looking for all the world like he's ready to have the deepest heart to heart session Kenma had definitely not asked for. 

 

"No—" 

 

"I don't like the way you've been acting!" 

 

Wow, that had surely escalated quickly, and gone in the exact same direction Kenma had not wanted. 

 

He's leaving.

 

He packs his things as Tora continues his tirade of 'manly' advice. 

 

"You've been really not cool lately! It's getting on my nerves! You could at least—! Say something or shout at me or cry or something! I can't—! H-how else am I supposed to help?!" 

 

Holy hell, is Tora  _crying_? Why is Tora  _crying_? It's a horrible look on him. He had rocked the Trying To Look Cool look before, but now he just looks plain ugly with tears and snot running down his face. Kenma hefts his bag on his shoulder, and tries not to break into a sprint as he walks away. 

 

Tora grabs his shoulder and spins him around roughly. With two hands on his shoulders, he's stuck way too close for comfort to Tora's face. 

 

"Say  _something_  dammit!" 

 

And then Tora reels back his head, and smacks Kenma in the face. 

 

The pain is instantaneous on both sides. 

 

Kenma grabs for his throbbing nose and warm, red liquid pours on his palms. He hopes the nosebleed doesn't kill the look of pure murder he's trying to shove Tora's way. 

 

Tora, for his part, grabs at his own head, a "shit, that hurt," escaping his mouth. He then looks at Kenma, and immediately looks like he wants to get to his knees and apologize for the next century. 

 

"Shit! Are you ok,Kenma?!" 

 

" _No_ ," says Kenma, with more venom than he intends. He doesn't care though, because his face hurts, his nose hurts, and everything hurts too much for him to even try to care about Tora's guilty expression.

 

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to... Shit, let me see that." 

 

" _Don't touch me_ ," Kenma seethes, and Tora's hand jerks back. However, he gets over his hesitation, and gently removes Kenma's hand. The only reason Kenma doesn't fight it is because he is too tired to keep this up any longer. He doesn't meet Tora's eyes as his friend inspects the damage. It reminds him too much of someone else. 

 

"I..." Tora's earlier fervor is completely gone. It's replaced by something Kenma has become too familiar with in the past year, something he does not want to deal with, neither on himself, or on his friends. 

 

"I don't _want_ your apology—" 

 

"I know about Yachi-san." 

 

If Kenma wasn't already a sight for someone who needed a good laugh, with the whole displaced nosebleed and all, he sure is now. 

 

" _What_." 

 

"I know about—" Tora gesticulates wildly with his hand, his face still bunched up. "—Yachi-san. And Wonderland. And the whole book thing." 

 

Kenma is about as speechless as that one time he had gotten forced married to the hero in a Fire Emblem run. 

 

"...what." 

 

"I _know_ , ok!" Tora rubs his mohawk furiously. "I should have said something! But you didn't say anything about, so I just thought I should wait until you did, but then... even when the thing with Yachi-san happened, you... you still didn't say anything." 

 

Tora bellows a sound of frustration, his hands grouse fervidly across his scalp, before he locks on to Kenma with a wild expression.

 

"Are you ok?!"

 

Kenma sucks in a breath. Tora... knew?  _He knew?_ This entire time? About... everything? 

 

_He knew?_

 

The information does absolutely nothing to settle Kenma. 

 

"No," he says swiftly. "I'm not ok." 

 

Tora jumps on him. 

 

"Oh my god, _yes_! Let it out! Scream! Cry! I don't care, do whatever the hell you need to do to make you feel better!" 

 

"I don't cry," Kenma grumbles somewhere at Tora's shoulder. 

 

His statement is immediately met with sniffling on Tora's part. 

 

"T-then I'll cry for you, ok! Just... I don't know, do whatever." 

 

Kenma lets Tora hold him. He really,  _really_  hopes he doesn't get any snot in Kenma's hair. That would make this even more disgusting. 

 

However, it's just the tiniest bit nice. Being held and comforted. He hadn't thought he needed this. But, somehow, the tightness of the hug uncoils some of the tensions Kenma had held inside, and he relaxes, just the tiniest bit. 

 

Tora pulls away after a while, but still keeps Kenma at arm's length. His face is a spectacular mess, a master piece of sorts. It almost makes Kenma laugh. Just almost. 

 

Tora scrubs his face with hand before returning it to Kenma's shoulder. 

 

Kenma gives it a disgusted look, but doesn’t comment. 

 

"Listen, Kenma,” Tora begins, with the sort of air of someone about to explain a hard truth. He probably is, if the determination in his eyes is anything to go by.

 

“Yachi-san, she... she didn't  _want_  to leave Wonderland. That's why she couldn't leave. I don't know _why_ she didn't... want to come back. But the important thing is that it  _wasn't your fault._ " 

 

First, Tora yells at him. Then he head butts him in the face so hard Kenma gets a nosebleed. Then he hugs and cries for him. And then he tells him the words he doesn't want to hear when he needs them the most. 

 

Where does Kenma get off having friends like this? 

 

Tora doesn't get it, but Kenma does. Yachi had asked him once, and he had answered her, and know she was gone because of it. She had thanked him, for doing exactly what Kenma had not wanted, and she had chosen an entire new life just because Kenma had said that she was a hero. 

 

This is the reason why Kenma isn't the protagonist of some shounen anime or light novel. Because he doesn't  _want_  to be one. He wants to be the Villager B who doesn't affect the plot, who doesn't force character development, who stays a constant the entire time. He does not want to say nice things to his friends and for them to take them as close to heart as Yachi did. 

 

But it _had_ happened. So Kenma has to deal with it. 

 

_***_

 

Kenma is still laughing. 

 

"It's not that I hate guys or anything like that! I just… really,  _really_  want to get married to a _cute_  girl, ok? Not some dude with a face like a yankee," says Tora, with a scowl to his own face like a yankee's. "But Akane was too small, and we were all sick and tired of the Red and White thing, so, I, uh... I'm married. But that's only  _there_ and not  _here_ , so don't even  _think_  about telling anyone or I'll freaking  _kill you_ , ya hear?!" 

 

Kenma is going to make a vague Facebook post about this just to spite him. 

 

They’re in the library. Kenma hasn't been here in such a long time. He almost forgot how quiet and homey it is. It really is a nice place just to hide away and kill his time until his long breaks ends, and he's a little pissed he was avoiding it because of reasons. 

 

Tora pulls out a book, and Kenma finally feels his heart beat a little quicker in his chest. It's been so long since he's jumped too, he isn't so sure how he feels about going into the never ending abyss again. 

 

He's even more nervous about not doing this alone. The last time he had fallen in Wonderland with someone, it had not ended well for anyone. But Tora assures him he's done this a million times, and that there is no way he's ever going to "pretend to be lovey dovey with Ryuu. He's a great guy and everything, but I never wanted to  _marry_ him!" 

 

Tora puts the book on the floor, and finally fixes Kenma with a serious expression. 

 

"Are you sure you're ok now? Are you sure you're ready?" 

 

Is Tora really going to unknowingly keep letting him relive all his last moments with Young Yachi? 

 

Kenma sighs, and some of the apprehension of jumping dissipates. Reluctantly, his thoughts travel to Yachi, and he thinks about the doubts and regrets she was having at this same moment. She had wanted something she could never find in this world, and for that, she had left everything she had ever known behind to find it. 

 

He's still a little mad about it. She could have said something. But even then, Kenma thinks that it wouldn't have changed much. 

 

"Yeah," he says. 

 

He thinks, _I want to jump_. 

 

And then he does. 

 


End file.
